Colorado’s SB 131 Would Kill Every Prop Bet in the State — Here’s What Bettors Need to Know

Colorado Senate Bill 26-131 would make the state the first legal sports betting market in America to ban all proposition bets — at every level, college and professional alike. If enacted, the bill would eliminate player props, same-game parlays built on props, in-game micro-bets, first-scorer wagers, and any bet on “any outcome other than the final result or score.” That’s not a tweak to the menu. It’s a demolition of the product category that generates 60–72% of sportsbook revenue in states where detailed data is available. For Colorado’s $6 billion-plus betting market, this represents the most aggressive regulatory intervention any legal state has attempted — and it comes paired with a credit card ban, an advertising blackout, deposit caps, and a first-of-its-kind provision that would forbid sportsbooks from limiting winning bettors.

Introduced on February 25, 2026, by a bipartisan group of four sponsors — Sen. Matt Ball (D-Denver), Sen. Byron Pelton (R-Sterling), Rep. Steven Woodrow (D-Denver), and Rep. Dan Woog (R-Erie) — the bill was immediately referred to the Senate Finance Committee. But as a “delayed bill” filed after the February 6 introduction deadline, SB 131 must first clear the Committee on Delayed Bills with a two-thirds supermajority before it can even receive a hearing. No hearing date has been set. The Sports Betting Alliance, representing DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, bet365, and Fanatics, has already branded the proposal “draconian.” The stakes extend beyond betting — Colorado’s sports betting taxes fund the state’s Water Plan Grant Program, which bankrolls critical water infrastructure as the state battles neighboring states over dwindling Colorado River rights.

The prop bet ban is breathtakingly broad

SB 131 defines a “proposition bet” as any wager on an individual athlete’s performance, a specific officiating decision, a penalty, an injury, or “any outcome other than the final result or score” of a sporting event. That final clause is the kill shot. It doesn’t just target the obvious player props — Nikola Jokic scoring 30 points, Bo Nix throwing for 200 yards, whether the next pitch is a ball or a strike. It eliminates every derivative market: first-scorer bets, team props beyond final score, quarter and half totals, margin of victory ranges, overtime props, and every in-game micro-bet that operators have spent billions of dollars in technology to build.

What survives is skeletal: moneylines, point spreads, game totals (over/unders), and futures on championships, divisions, and awards. That’s it. A Colorado bettor could still pick the Broncos to cover -3.5, but could not bet on any individual Bronco’s performance within that game. Multi-game parlays composed solely of moneylines, spreads, and totals would remain legal — but with the combinatorial depth stripped from single-game offerings, the appeal of parlays collapses to a fraction of its current form.

The same-game parlay deserves special attention. Kambi’s 2025 trends report found that 88% of pre-match Bet Builder wagers at Super Bowl LIX contained at least one player prop leg, up from 72% in 2022. FanDuel CEO Amy Howe disclosed at Flutter’s September 2024 Investor Day that parlays make up 70% of all NFL and NBA bets on FanDuel. DraftKings reported same-game parlay handle up 40% year-over-year at the Super Bowl. Remove player props and the SGP product — the single most profitable innovation in modern sports betting — functionally ceases to exist. You cannot build a narrative bet around a single game when the only available legs are spread, total, and moneyline.

The financial math behind why operators are terrified

Related tools: Parlay Calculator · Expected Value Calculator

The economics are stark. Sportsbooks earn a 30%+ hold on parlays in Nevada versus 4–6% on straight bets, according to the UNLV Center for Gaming Research. The numbers tell an unmistakable story across every state that publishes detailed revenue data.

These aren’t obscure markets. Parlays have become the entire business model. DraftKings’ structural sportsbook hold rose to 11.2% in fiscal year 2024, driven primarily by what CFO Jason Park called “the silver bullet” — bet mix and parlay mix. FanDuel’s structural gross revenue margin hit 15.5% in fiscal year 2025, with Flutter crediting “continued increase in parlay penetration.” Both companies’ paths to their margin targets depend on continued SGP growth.

“I think it would be an enormous drop in the amount of bets being made. The people love their props, the sports books love their props. Without them, they’ll be doing a lot less betting, which is really not good for the state, it’s not good for the sports book and it’s not good for the consumer.”
— Zack Price, Denver-based sports betting analyst, 9News

A conservative estimate based on cross-state data suggests a prop ban could reduce Colorado sportsbook revenue by 40–60%, with proportional cuts to tax collections that currently flow to water infrastructure. Colorado sportsbooks have generated $2.1 billion in cumulative revenue and paid $138.2 million in gaming taxes since launching in May 2020. During the 2024–25 fiscal year alone, $36.8 million in taxes were collected — a 354% increase from the first fiscal year. Nearly $33.8 million supported water projects last year, with projections approaching $39 million for the next cycle. The 2025 passage of HB25-1311, which phases out promotional tax deductions by July 2026, was expected to add roughly $13 million more annually to the Water Plan fund. A revenue collapse from a prop ban would directly undermine that trajectory.

No state has gone this far — Colorado would be alone

Thirteen or more states restrict college player props: Arizona, Colorado (already), Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia, with several others imposing partial restrictions on in-state schools. The NCAA has aggressively lobbied for these bans since 2023, with President Charlie Baker contacting gambling commissions nationwide after Ohio became the first to ban college player props in February 2024.

But no state with legal sports betting has ever banned all proposition bets at both college and professional levels. Colorado would be the first. The distinction matters enormously. College prop bans are defensible on integrity grounds — NCAA enforcement investigated approximately 40 student-athletes across 20 schools in the past year, and a January 2026 indictment in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania charged 26 people in what prosecutors called “the most sweeping college basketball scandal since 1951,” spanning 17 teams and involving bribes of $10,000–$30,000 per fixed game (see our coverage of the NCAA point-shaving scandal for the full breakdown).

Yet banning all professional props goes far beyond what the manipulation evidence supports. The overwhelming majority of prop betting involves bettors making picks on mainstream statistical categories — not the obscure micro-markets that facilitate corruption. The bill’s sponsors acknowledge this tension. Sen. Ball framed the legislation as “the start of a conversation,” signaling he expects significant amendments.

The anti-winner-limiting provision is a sleeper bombshell

Buried beneath the prop ban headline is a provision that sharp bettors nationwide should watch closely. SB 131 would prohibit sportsbooks from “limiting the size and frequency of deposits or bets because an individual obtains a financial benefit as a result of placing the bet or due to the individual’s betting activities.” The only permitted exceptions are suspicious wagering activity (integrity concerns) or indicators of gambling disorder.

“This is an entertainment activity. People who are doing this for profit are not the players we want.”
— Jason Robins, CEO of DraftKings

This directly targets the industry’s most controversial practice. BetMGM told Massachusetts regulators it limits roughly 1% of its bettors. Massachusetts Gaming Commission data revealed that nearly 58% of limited accounts could wager only 1–24% of the default bet amount — effective de facto bans. DraftKings’ 2023 fiscal report described managing individual customer limits as “customary” for “enterprise risk management.”

Only a handful of jurisdictions are moving on this issue. New York’s Fair Play Act (A9125), introduced in September 2025, mirrors Colorado’s approach by proposing an outright ban on winner-limiting. Wyoming’s Gaming Commission studied the issue in May 2025 and concluded it saw no problem, taking no action. The rare sportsbooks that welcome sharp action — Circa in Las Vegas, Pinnacle, Bookmaker — are industry outliers that demonstrate the practice is discretionary, not essential.

If Colorado’s anti-limiting provision survives the legislative process, it would represent the strongest statutory protection for winning bettors in any US jurisdiction. For sharp bettors who have been systematically restricted by major operators, this alone could make Colorado the most bettor-friendly regulated market in the country — an ironic outcome for a bill that simultaneously eliminates the prop markets many sharps profit from.

Advertising and deposit restrictions mirror international models

SB 131’s advertising blackout would prohibit sports betting broadcast ads from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. — a 14-hour daily window — and ban them entirely during live sporting event broadcasts. The bill also bars promotional language including “bonus bet,” “no sweat,” and enhanced payout promotions, prohibits instructions on placing bets during athletic broadcasts, and imposes a complete ban on push notifications and text messages encouraging betting or deposits. Violations carry class 2 misdemeanor charges and fines up to $25,000.

The advertising provisions draw from international precedents. The UK’s voluntary “whistle-to-whistle” ban, in effect since August 2019, reported a 78% decline in gambling ads during live pre-watershed sports programming. Australia’s framework bans gambling ads during live play between 5:00 a.m. and 8:30 p.m., with a federal parliamentary committee recommending a phased total ban in 2023. Colorado’s proposal goes further than either model — statutory, covering all broadcast hours from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and extending to all live sports regardless of time. No US state currently has a statutory ban on sports betting ads during live sports broadcasts.

Where bettors would actually migrate

If props disappear from Colorado’s legal market, the money doesn’t vanish — it finds new channels. The most frictionless migration path leads to prediction markets, which offer functionally identical products under federal CFTC regulation rather than state gambling licenses. As we’ve covered, the power shift toward prediction markets is already well underway nationally.

Kalshi, a CFTC-registered Designated Contract Market, now processes over 90% of its platform volume through sports-related contracts. The platform handled an estimated $3–5 billion in NFL wagers during the 2025 season, including over $1 billion on the Super Bowl. It operates in all 50 states under a federal preemption claim, though Nevada, Massachusetts, and Maryland have challenged this. Underdog Predict, operating through a partnership with Crypto.com’s CFTC-registered exchange, offers sports event contracts including player props, spreads, and totals in 33 states plus DC, including Colorado.

The critical regulatory question is whether SB 131 — which targets state-licensed sportsbooks — would reach CFTC-regulated prediction markets. The Commodity Exchange Act states it “shall supersede and preempt the application of any State or local law that prohibits or regulates gaming.” Sports Betting Alliance president Joe Maloney specifically warned: “Colorado should seize this moment to strengthen its state-regulated market — not hand it back to illegal operators or chase bettors to federally regulated platforms.”

The political math favors amendment, not passage as written

SB 131 faces steep procedural and political headwinds in its current form. The delayed bill status requires two-thirds approval from the Committee on Delayed Bills before any committee hearing can occur. Sen. Ball’s own language — calling the bill “the start of a conversation” that “could change as it moves through the legislative process” — signals expectation of significant amendment.

The water funding complication creates a powerful counter-narrative that crosses partisan lines. Colorado’s ongoing legal battles with Utah, California, and Arizona over Colorado River water rights make any threat to the Water Plan Grant Program politically radioactive. As one industry analysis bluntly stated: “Access to clean drinking water is far more important” than gambling restrictions, predicting “strong opposition in both chambers.”

Problem gambling advocates, however, have provided compelling political cover. The Problem Gambling Coalition of Colorado reports the state hotline averaged 350 calls per month in 2025, with 60–80% from young males. A Common Sense Media national survey found 36% of boys aged 11–17 reported gambling in the past year, with rates rising to 51% among 16-year-olds. PGCC therapist Jamie Glick called the situation “an emerging public health crisis.” Joshua Ewing of Healthier Colorado stated: “It’s not about rolling back voter-approved betting. It’s about guardrails. The goal is smart policy, not prohibition.”

What comes next

SB 131 is best understood not as imminent legislation but as an opening bid — a maximalist regulatory proposal designed to set the terms of debate around Colorado’s rapidly expanding sports betting market. The bill’s most likely legacy is not an outright prop ban but rather catalyzing a narrower set of reforms: credit card restrictions, advertising guardrails, data transparency requirements, and potentially groundbreaking anti-winner-limiting protections.

For bettors, the actionable intelligence is threefold. First, the prop ban as written is unlikely to pass in its current form, but some version of expanded prop restrictions is coming to Colorado — the bipartisan sponsorship and national momentum around college prop bans guarantee this issue does not die quietly. Second, the anti-winner-limiting provision deserves more attention than it has received; if enacted, it would make Colorado the most favorable regulatory environment for sharp bettors in the nation. Third, the migration infrastructure already exists — prediction markets, DFS pick’em platforms, and offshore books are positioned to absorb displaced prop betting volume, which means any ban’s practical impact on bettor behavior may be far smaller than its impact on Colorado’s tax revenue and water funding.

The bill’s ultimate test is not whether it can restrict prop betting, but whether it can restrict prop betting without simply handing the market to platforms that contribute nothing to the state.

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Sources

• Senate Bill 26-131 Full Text — Colorado General Assembly
• Colorado Sports Betting Revenue Data — Colorado Division of Gaming
• Monthly Sports Wagering Reports — New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement
• Sizing the Illegal Sports Betting Market — American Gaming Association
• NCAA Position on Sports Wagering — National Collegiate Athletic Association
• Sports Wagering Regulations — Account Limiting Rules — Massachusetts Gaming Commission
• Teens and Online Gambling Survey — Common Sense Media