Colorado Takes The Plunge As Sports Betting Officially Launches

colorado sports betting
Sports betting officially became legal in Colorado on Friday, though mobile betting was all that was available due to casinos being closed.

After a rocky road, and a worldwide pandemic causing sports to stop in place, Colorado launched sports betting on Friday. If this had been a normal May 1, baseball would be in full swing, the NBA and NHL playoffs would be ongoing, and the Summer Olympics in Tokyo would be in the not too distant future.

That was then, though, and this is now, and there are not a lot of sports to bet on now, but the state says, that’s very temporary. A Colorado Gaming official said off the record, “There were just too many people that worked long hard hours to get sports betting up and running. People spent hard-earned money and savings on sports betting licenses, and the right moral thing to do was to go ahead with the pre-planned launch date, so that’s what we did.”

The sports world has been on lockdown since March, iSports are gaining in popularity, and some sports do have return dates etched in stone. Colorado started accepting bets at 10 am local time on Friday. Four online sports betting operators are now up and running in Colorado.

Four Sportsbooks Up And Running, Report A Good First Day

By midday on Friday, all four sportsbooks reported a brisk amount of activity, which gaming officials said is a very good sign of things to come for the state programs that will benefit from the revenues generated from sports betting. The four sportsbooks that are up and running are BetRivers, BetMGM, DraftKings, and FanDuel.

Play Now at BetOnline

Casinos remained closed, so those casinos in Cripple Creek and Black Hawk that have online sports betting are good to go. The 33 casinos in the state that applied for sports betting licenses did receive what is called a master license.

There are several different iSports that are taking bets in Colorado, and there have also been some ingenious ones that became available on May 1. People can place bets on whether the Denver Broncos will win the next Super Bowl.

colorado sports betting
Former Denver Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups made the first official sports bet in Colorado on Friday.

People can place over/under bets on how many receiving yards rookie receiver Jerry Jeudy will have in his first pro season with the Broncos. Former University of Colorado and Denver Nuggets star Chauncey Billups placed the first bet in Colorado at BetRivers.com, putting $100 on Jeudy to win NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year at +2000.

Some Obscure Sports Events Available To Bet On

All four sportsbooks are offering action on live table tennis games in Moscow, and dart games in Taiwan. Suzanne Karrer of the Colorado Department of Revenue Enforcement Division talked about specific sports betting issues on Friday.

Karrer said sports betting licenses were issued to casinos and six online sportsbooks. Four of the sportsbooks were open for business on launch day.

The other two have been plagued with technical issues and say they will be up and running next week. Karrer said that the coronavirus has been a bit of a damper on the festivities; however, operators and fans are happy that sports betting has launched in Colorado.

Karrer said she is proud of all the people that were involved in making the May 1 launch possible, and although the offerings are far less than what was originally planned, more and more sports will be offered as we recover from the virus.

Karrer said, “This has been a very soft launch due to the situation. No balloons or cake or fanfare. That would have been very inappropriate, but we will have our time, just not now, but in the future, there will be a massive celebration.”

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