SB26-131 now heads to the House after a bipartisan Senate vote and an expert panel event featuring Lawrence Funderburke

DENVER, CO — Today, the Colorado Senate passed SB26-131, the Online Problem Gambling Act, on a bipartisan vote, sending the bill to the House on the same day former NBA player Lawrence Funderburke joined leading sports-betting policy experts in Denver to lay out the human cost of unregulated online sports betting in Colorado. Sponsored by Senators Matt Ball (D-Denver) and Byron Pelton (R-Sterling), along with Representatives Steven Woodrow (D-Denver) and Dan Woog (R-Erie), SB26-131 establishes commonsense guardrails to curb impulsive online sports betting and protect Coloradans from the financial, emotional, and social harms of problem gambling.

Later in the morning at Hudson Hill in Denver, the Campaign for Fairer Gambling convened Funderburke, Jonathan Cohen, Ph.D., of the American Institute for Boys and Men, and gambling recovery advocate Rob Minnick of ODAAT Gambling Awareness for a data-driven panel on the public health impact of online sports betting. Speakers detailed an industry that has exploded since 2019:
Healthier Colorado advocates on behalf of everyday Coloradans to change laws and systems so that everyone has a fair chance at living a healthy life. We work to improve the physical, mental, and social health of Coloradans through lobbying, state legislative campaigns, research, policy development, and advocacy.

• Coloradans now wager more than $6 billion on sports each year,
• Calls to the state’s gambling addiction hotline jumped nearly 50% in the first year alone, and;
• 73% of Coloradans say legalizing sports betting has made problem gambling worse.

SB26-131 honors voters’ choice by allowing the legal sports betting market to continue while strengthening consumer protections and public health safeguards. The bill restricts the use of credit cards to fund sports gambling accounts, limits an individual to no more than five deposits within any 24-hour period, restricts advertising designed to induce problem gamblers, requires data collection on the prevalence of problem gambling in Colorado, and creates higher fines for violations and stronger protections against underage gambling.

“Online sports betting has placed casinos in the pocket of nearly every Coloradan with little protections built in for those addicted to gambling or our young people,” said Sen. Matt Ball (D-Denver). “SB26-131 is about reasonable guardrails. It honors what voters approved in 2019 while making sure that an industry that has grown from $1 billion to more than $6 billion wagered in just a few years isn’t doing so at the cost of our families’ financial security, our kids’ wellbeing, or the integrity of the games we love.”

“This is a commonsense, bipartisan bill that puts Coloradans first,” said Sen. Byron Pelton (R-Sterling). “Across rural and urban Colorado, families are seeing the very real harm that unchecked online sports betting can cause. We aren’t telling adults what to do, we’re putting basic consumer protections in place, especially for our kids, and making sure the industry is accountable when things go wrong.”

“I’ve seen what gambling addiction does to athletes, to families, and to entire communities,” said Lawrence Funderburke, former NBA player and financial educator. “Today’s young people are growing up with a sportsbook in their pocket and gambling ads in every commercial break. Colorado’s Senate took a stand for them today. SB26-131 is exactly the kind of guardrail that gives people — and especially young people — a fighting chance for a promising financial future.”

“Today’s Senate vote, paired with the experiences shared on the Campaign’s panel, makes one thing clear: Coloradans want commonsense guardrails on online sports betting,” said Joshua Ewing, Executive Director of Healthier Colorado. “Calls to our state’s gambling addiction hotline have jumped nearly 50% since legalization, and the harm continues to grow. We applaud the bipartisan sponsors of SB26-131 for listening to the data, the experts, and the Coloradans living with this every day. We look forward to working with the House Sponsors and urge quick action in the final weeks of the legislative session.”

“We applaud the Senate for recognizing the negative impact sports betting has had on many Coloradans and taking action. This is an important first step in sports wagering reform and establishing new benchmarks for the industry,” said Brianne Doura-Schawohl, on behalf of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling.

Learn more at sportsbettingimpact.com/about.