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Lawmakers in Colorado are looking to curb a rise in gambling addiction from sports betting by introducing Senate Bill 131.
Sen. Matt Ball, D-Denver and Sen. Byron Pelton, R-Sterling, would prohibit sports betting apps from offering proposition bets on individual athletes’ performances. The bill also has a Democratic and a Republican sponsor in the House as well.
It would also prevent deposits via credit cards, limit the number of deposits a person can make into an account, and ban push notifications to gamblers’ cellphones from betting companies such as DraftKings and FanDuel.
“Frankly, the more I looked into i,t the more I became really, really alarmed by everything that has happened as a consequence of legalized sports betting and, in my view, placing very few restrictions on it,” said Ball, who believes the proliferation of sports betting in the state is leading to financial debts and other consequences not initially considered when sports gambling became legalized through a narrowly passed voter referendum in November of 2019.
Colorado voters approved Proposition DD, the ballot measure allowing the state to tax and regulate sports betting and directing some of the revenue toward public purposes (notably water projects).
The referendum was passed just one year after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on most sports betting (the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or PASPA), paving the way for states to legalize and regulate it themselves.
The amount Colorado bettors have wagered has steadily increased each year, with people betting more than $6 billion on sports in 2025.
“We just didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Ball said of Colorado’s quick entry into legalized sports betting. “It’s just exploded and it’s happened very fast. I think we can see the harm that’s happened very clearly.”
The sports betting industry opposes such legislation.
“Colorado should seize this moment to strengthen its state-regulated market — not hand it back to illegal operators or chase bettors to federally regulated platforms,” said Joe Maloney, president of the Sports Betting Alliance. “This proposal undermines the very consumer protections it claims to advance, rewarding actors who openly flout Colorado law and contribute nothing to the state’s communities by way of tax revenues.”
The bill also aims to restrict television advertisements in the state, especially during live sports broadcasts.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911..com
