The Colorado Department of Revenue reported Thursday that sportsbooks claimed $20.8 million in gross revenue for July, recovering from the previous month’s Stanley Cup title run by the Avalanche that had helped skew the bottom line lower.
Operators had a win rate just shy of 8.1% in July, nearly six percentage points higher than in June. That helped offset the 17.5% decline in handle to $258.4 million, which is typically connected to the summertime downturn in sports activity.
The state was the beneficiary of the upswing in revenue, as it was eligible to levy taxes on $14.2 million in adjusted revenue. That was the third-highest amount in 27 months of wagering in the Centennial State and marked the first time the percentage of adjusted revenue to gross revenue exceeded two-thirds.
Nearly $6.6 million in promotional credits and deductions were taken by sports betting operators, but that was the lowest monthly amount since just over $6 million was claimed in July of last year. That helped the state levy taxes on 68.4% of the adjusted revenue, beating the previous high of 61.3% in July 2021.
As a result, state coffers received nearly $1.1 million worth of receipts, lifting the total to $7.3 million for the year. That is slightly more than $900,000 ahead of last year’s pace through the first seven months.
A banner month for baseball
All-time Top 10 #SportsBetting handles post-PASPA by state (July in CAPS):
1 NEW JERSEY ~$29.1B
2 NEVADA $25.57B
3 PENNSYLVANIA $15.54B
4 Illinois $13.65B
5 NEW YORK $9.76B
6 INDIANA $8.55B
7 COLORADO $7.88B <–NEW
8 MICHIGAN $6.8B
9 VIRGINIA $5.89B <–NEW
10 TENNESSEE $5.07B— Chris Altruda (@AlTruda73) September 1, 2022
Despite the Rockies being a staggering 35 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West at the start of play Thursday and mathematically eliminated from the division race, Colorado bettors are not shying away from placing wagers on the summer pastime. Handle reached nine figures for the second straight month, climbing to a record $110.6 million and lifting the amount bet to nearly $378 million since the start of April.
Operator revenue for baseball also hit a monthly all-time high of close to $7.3 million, smashing the previous standard of $5.2 million set in July 2021. The 6.6% hold for baseball was nearly three percentage points higher compared to June.
Revenue from parlay wagering narrowly beat out baseball as the top earner for operators in July. The house collected more than $7.3 million on $55.8 million worth of bets, as the 13.1% win rate was more in line for that type of action in Colorado versus June’s all-time low of 6.8%. The year-to-date hold on parlays is 12.2%, with operators claiming $63.2 million from over $520 million handle.
Tennis finished a surprising second in handle by sport with an all-time high of $24.4 million. It was the fifth consecutive month tennis handle exceeded $20 million, but the public fared much better in July than June, limiting the house to close to $1.6 million by knocking the win rate down more than four percentage points to 6.5%.
The bettors did manage to land one stinging loss on the house, coming out more than $710,000 ahead on close to $8 million wagered in golf. It was the largest monthly loss for operators in the sport, with operators finishing nearly $533,000 in the red in May 2021.
Though wagering on table tennis has slowed due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which led to a ban on wagering for the popular niche sport on matches originating in that country, all-time handle topped the $200 million mark after another $4 million was wagered in July. Table tennis, soccer, and MMA are the only three sports that have been in the top 10 of every monthly report since Colorado accepted its first bets in May 2020.
