Four Colorado legislators are co-sponsoring a bill that would ban “prop bets” in online sportsbooks and place several new restrictions on how they do business in the state.
SB26-131, the Sports Betting Protections Act, was introduced Feb. 25. No further action has been taken on the bill yet, but that is not unusual this early in the legislative session.
Colorado joins a growing list of states considering bans on prop bets, where gamblers wager on small facets of a game — such as an individual player’s performance or even who wins a pre-game coin flip.
At least 15 states have at least partial bans on prop betting.
The bill has bipartisan sponsors in both chambers, with Sens. Matt Ball, D-Denver, and Byron Pelton, R-Sterling, and Reps. Steven Woodrow, D-Denver, and Dan Woog, R-Erie, signed on.
Here’s what the central issues are and what is being proposed:
What are prop bets?
The bill defines a “proposition bet” as “a bet concerning the performance of an individual athlete participating in an athletic event, or a combination of athletic events, the outcome of which bet depends on the occurrence or nonoccurrence of a specific act, statistic, performance, event, or circumstance within the athletic event or combination of athletic events.”
The text goes on to say prop bets include wagers on “an individual athlete’s performance, an officiating decision, a penalty, an injury, the timing of an event, or any outcome other than the final result or score of an athletic event, regardless of whether the bet is placed before or during the athletic event.”
Examples include wagers that a player will score more or less than a certain number of points in a basketball game, that a certain player will score the first touchdown in a football game or even how fast a specific pitch in a baseball game will be.
Why do people want to ban prop bets?
The argument against allowing prop bets is that it is relatively easy for a single athlete to manipulate their performance so bettors can cash in. That could make athletes subject to threats and harassment, and they could also profit through bribes, kickbacks or bets placed on their behalf. All of those scenarios would affect the integrity of games.
For example, Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz are facing federal charges that they intentionally threw slower pitches at certain points of games so gamblers could win prop bets. In basketball, the NBA banned Jontay Porter for life, saying the then-Toronto Raptors forward faked injuries and took himself out of games to stay below statistical thresholds spelled out in prop bets.
Porter pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in federal court in July 2024 for his role in the gambling scheme and is awaiting sentencing. Clase and Ortiz pleaded not guilty to their federal charges.
Major League Baseball and the NCAA are among the major sports organizations that have encouraged limits, if not outright bans, on prop bets involving their athletes after revelations of and investigations into gambling schemes.
What else would the bill do?
The bill would create limits on how sports gambling is promoted, how money is deposited and when bettors could be restricted in Colorado. The proposed changes include:
Online sportsbooks could not accept more than five deposits within 24 hours from a bettor.
The sportsbooks could not send text messages or push notifications encouraging additional wagers or more deposits.
Gamblers could not use credit cards to add funds to their accounts.
Sportsbooks could not ban or restrict a user simply for winning a lot. They would instead need to have identified signs of suspicious activity or a gambling disorder.
Ads could not promote bonuses or provide instructions on how to place wagers.
Ads would be prohibited outright from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., as well as during live sporting events.
Nate Trela covers trending news in Colorado and Utah for the USA TODAY Network.
This bill could end prop bets in Colorado
