Colorado sportsbook surges

Analysts at PlayColorado in the US say the state’s online and retail sportsbooks surged to a new high in October.

The state launched sports betting in May, but the virus pandemic severely impacted live sporting events. The analysts also passed on estimates from gaming researchers Eilers & Krejcik that major companies in the market such as DraftKings and FanDuel had captured the majority of the Colorado market.

“October’s data shows that Colorado’s market is able to thrive even as the sports schedule normalises and able to overcome a local team struggling, such as the Denver Broncos,” said Jessica Welman, analyst for PlayColorado. “Another sign that the market is marching toward maturity is that DraftKings and FanDuel have firmed up their market leads in the state, something we’ve seen in every legal market that has launched since 2018 while attracting a large number of competitors to push innovation in the market.”

Colorado’s sportsbooks attracted $210.7 million in bets in October, according to data released Monday by the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Division of Gaming. October’s handle was up two per cent from $207.7m in September, generating a record $17.4m in gross gaming revenue, up 317.7 per cent from $4.2m in September. Eilers and Krejcik’s estimates show that DraftKings and FanDuel – the nation’s two largest sportsbook operators which both launched in Colorado on May 1 – have generated 84 per cent of Colorado’s gross gaming revenue since the market launched in May.