Colorado Sportsbooks See Handle Decline In July, Following US Trend

Written By Ian St. Clair on 09/02/2021
July sports betting revenue Colorado

In the slowest month of the year for sports betting, Colorado had a decent July.

Since most casual bettors put their focus to other aspects of life, and since there’s not a lot to wager on in July, that makes sense.

The Colorado sports betting market was helped by the fact Coors Field played host to the MLB All Star game. That helped draw thousands of fans to Denver and new potential customers to sports betting apps.

There was also the NBA Finals and the first week of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Add all up and the online and retail and sportsbooks in Colorado accepted $181.3 million in wagers in July, according to sports betting numbers released by the Colorado Division of Gaming.

Colorado sports betting by the numbers in July

After the third-best gross gaming revenue month in the market’s history in June with $19.7 million, July remained strong with $15.7 million. That is still a 21% decrease from June.

The net betting proceeds also dropped from the $11.7 million in June. For July, that number was $9.6 million.

After the state collected $1.2 million in taxes in June, the second-highest ever for the state, that number dipped in July. The state collected $999,110 in taxes for the month, which is still better than the $635,641 in state taxes for May.

To the surprise of no one, sports bettors in Colorado continue to place wagers online. In July, $179.1 million of the total handle came from online wagers. Only $2.2 million came from retail sportsbooks.

Colorado all-time sports betting numbers

July sports betting in Colorado also helped the market hit some significant all-time revenue numbers:

  • $2,984,705,766 in total sports betting handle
  • $197,897,788 in gross gaming revenue
  • $9,455,537 in state taxes

Top sports wagered on

For the first time in six months, NBA betting in Colorado wasn’t at the top of the list.

MLB betting took over as the most wagered in the state. As noted earlier, that was aided by the All-Star Game.

The NBA still came in at No. 2.

That was followed by soccer betting, tennis betting and, of course, table tennis betting.

Top 5 betting sports

  1. Baseball $61.1 million
  2. Basketball $27.2 million
  3. Soccer $14 million
  4. Tennis $12 million
  5. Table tennis $8.7 million
Wagers by sportTotal HandleOnline HandleRetail HandleRevenue (GGR)
Baseball$61,067,038$59,918,609$1,148,429$5,179,964
Pro Basketball$27,184,933$26,699,437$485,496$2,263,222
Soccer$13,999,205$13,896,469$102,736$865,123
Tennis$12,030,069$12,016,179$13,890$723,213
Table Tennis$8,660,320$8,657,117$3,203$779,436
Golf$5,266,455$5,256,806$9,649$76,894
MMA$4,368,774$4,295,506$73,268$642,008
Summer Athletics$2,813,534$2,811,454$2,080$624,180
Hockey$1,551,016$1,529,026$21,990$23,629
Pro Football$586,203$554,068$32,135$527,411
Other$13,024,442$12,957,982$66,460$619,069
Parlay$30,776,006$30,532,023$243,983$3,328,312
Total$181,327,995$179,124,676$2,203,319$15,652,461
Photo by AP / David Zalubowski
Ian St. Clair Avatar
Written by
Ian St. Clair

Ian is an award-winning sports journalist and a University of Northern Colorado graduate. He’s a Colorado native and has over a decade of experience covering college and professional athletics. He broke into the gambling industry right as Colorado launched legal sports betting in 2020. Ian now manages the sites for some of the biggest gambling markets in North America and is an analyst for PlayColorado.

View all posts by Ian St. Clair