Early UNLV Data Puts Colorado's Problem Sports Bettors at 7%, From a Sample of About 20

Interim results from a state-funded University of Nevada, Las Vegas study suggest 7% of Colorado's sports bettors report serious gambling problems, in a year when the state's sports betting tax take rose 28% to $47.2 million. On the reported numbers, the figure rests on about 20 sports bettors in a 500-person sample, and the full method has not been published.

• Interim results from a University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) study found that 4% of Coloradans bet on sports and 7% of those bettors reported serious gambling problems, lead researcher Shane Kraus told CDC Gaming
• The study surveyed 500 randomly selected Coloradans, gamblers and non-gamblers, and Kraus said problem gambling was 2% higher among women, a gap the team cannot yet explain
• During the week of the World Cup final, 59.4% of participants said they saw sportsbook advertising at least once, and bet-$50-get-$10 and first-bet cashback offers were seen as more likely to encourage overspending than profit boosts
• The Colorado Limited Gaming Control Commission funds the work through its Responsible Gaming Grant Program, which awarded UNLV $312,239 in February for a project on sports betting promotional offers
• Colorado collected a record $47.2 million in sports betting tax in fiscal 2025-26, most of it destined for water projects, as states nationally left about $43 million of problem gambling budgets unspent in FY2025

UNLV's Interim Findings Put a First Number on Colorado's Sports Bettors

UNLV researchers presented interim findings from a Colorado sports betting study at the Problem Gambling Coalition of Colorado's annual conference, according to CDC Gaming, which reported them on 12 October. Shane Kraus, a UNLV psychology professor and the project's lead researcher, said the study drew on 500 random Coloradans, including people who gamble and people who do not. According to the interim results, 4% of Coloradans bet on sports and 7% of those bettors reported serious problems. Kraus described the rate as "kind of high" and said Colorado now has a benchmark that "we have to lower".

The interim figures do not say which screening instrument was used, how "serious problems" was defined, or how participants were recruited. Standard screens such as the Problem Gambling Severity Index separate problem gamblers from moderate-risk and low-risk players; the reported results do not. Kraus said problem gambling was 2% higher among women, without specifying whether that means percentage points, and that the researchers were "just digging into" the reasons.

According to preliminary results shared with CDC Gaming, 41.4% of participants named the lottery as their most common gambling activity, followed by sports betting at 17.4%, slots and video poker at 16.2%, casino table games at 11.6% and bingo at 11.4%. Some 13.9% said they had gambled online in ways the outlet described as illegal in Colorado, which licenses online sports betting but not online casino games, and 7.3% had bought prediction market contracts.

Advertising During the World Cup Final

According to the preliminary findings, 37.5% of participants watched at least some of the final, 59.4% saw sportsbook advertising at least once during the final week and 35.1% saw promotional offers at least once that week; 7.3% placed a real-money bet on the match. Participants viewed bet-$50-get-$10 and first-bet cashback offers as more likely to be used, and more likely to encourage overspending, than 30% profit-boost messaging.

UNLV has also surveyed 1,400 gamblers and non-gamblers nationwide, and that data is still being evaluated; final results are not due until after the Super Bowl in February. Kraus called the project the "most comprehensive study ever in the U.S.", a claim that cannot be tested until the method is published. The team recommends a research partnership with the Colorado Division of Gaming and treatment providers, identifying where risk is concentrated and testing interventions before scaling them.

The work is funded by the Colorado Limited Gaming Control Commission through its Responsible Gaming Grant Program, according to CDC Gaming. The commission's February 2026 award list shows UNLV received $312,239 for phase one of "The Causal Impact of Sports Betting Promotional Offers", one of nine grants totalling $3,783,954.50. UNLV says the project, led by Kraus with Tiange Xu and Andrea Dassopoulos of its International Gaming Institute, will test whether sign-up bonuses and odds boosts causally drive problematic gambling, in partnership with the Problem Gambling Coalition of Colorado.

A 7% Rate Among Bettors Is a Signal, Not Yet a Prevalence Estimate

The arithmetic matters more than the headline. If the figures are as reported, 4% of a 500-person sample is about 20 sports bettors, and 7% of them is one or two people, far too few to estimate a statewide rate. The numbers also do not sit easily together: 7.3% of participants bet real money on the World Cup final, more than the 4% said to bet on sports at all. The 4% may refer to something else, but the interim material does not say. That does not make the finding wrong, but the February report is the one to quote, and that "serious problems" should not yet be read as a clinical problem gambling rate rather than a mix of problem and at-risk play.

The Advertising Findings Are Where the Grant Money Points

The strongest part of the interim work is the advertising data, because that is what the commission is paying UNLV to test. Under House Bill 22-1402, operators already file annual reports on how they promote responsible gaming in their advertising, but those reports are confidential. Evidence linking specific offer structures, such as matched deposits and cashback, to overspending would give the regulator something it can act on without relying on operator disclosures. Colorado has fined Fanatics $20,000 after a promotional offer reached a self-excluded customer, and New York is proposing to ban AI-tailored gambling offers. But how participants perceive an advert is not measured behaviour, which is why the project's causal phase matters more than this survey.

Colorado's Tax Windfall Goes to Water, Not to Harm Research

Colorado's sports bettors wagered $6.45 billion in fiscal 2025-26, up 2.33%, and the state collected $47,204,505.70 in tax, up 28.1%, according to the Division of Gaming. When voters approved Proposition JJ in November 2024, state forecasts expected about $31.5 million for the year, and the 2019 Proposition DD cap was $29 million, according to Rocky Mountain PBS. Proposition JJ lets the state keep the excess, but sends it to water conservation projects, not to problem gambling services. The grant fund behind the UNLV study is fed by a fixed $2.5 million annual transfer from the state's share of casino tax, plus hold-harmless money left unspent for two years, under House Bill 22-1402. The record sports betting take reaches harm research only indirectly, and, as a September opinion column in The Colorado Sun argued, the state does not collect the individual-level betting data that would let researchers size the problem directly.

Colorado has funded the right question and received an early answer that is too thin to carry policy on its own. The February report will show whether 7% is a rounding of one or two respondents or a rate the state now has to confront.