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Bettors in Colorado are throwing down insane amounts of cash on table tennis, according to a recent revenue report. Gamblers in the state dropped more than $6M on the typically recreational sport.
That number ranks as one of the more highly bet upon areas among sports bettors in the Centennial State, and it has many on social media talking.
David Payne Purdum, a writer for ESPN Chalk, posted the recently released numbers on his Twitter account Wednesday. The obscure wagers are both shocking and hilarious.
The results show all sports wagered on legally in Colorado this past November. As one would expect, football and basketball easily take the top spots.
NBA is king, seeing more than $142M worth of tickets placed. That’s quickly followed by $137M bet on NFL action, with both college football and basketball rounding out the top four.
But after that, it gets interesting.
Table tennis actually beats out both baseball and MMA, which is interesting as those were the only two sports to see players make a profit. Baseball makes a bit of sense as the season was coming to a close in November, but there were still World Series games to bet on.
In all, more than $550M was wagered at the sportsbooks, but it’s that outlier of ping pong that has people talking.
One person wrote, “It’s the awesome, weird outlier that will outlive us all.”
Another sarcastically said, “Nothing alarming to see here. Just standard table tennis bets.”
Apparently, this is nothing new for Coloradans. The sport is pretty popular in the area, for whatever reason.
More money bet annually on table tennis in Colorado than horse racing which did $44M annually in 2018 (last year data was reported).
— Riley Grannan (@RileyGrannan) January 4, 2023
I guess this is what happens when you’re forced to watch Russell Wilson cook for the Broncos all winter long.
Unfortunately, those table tennis bettors didn’t turn a profit. While over $6.07M was bet, just under $5.625M was paid out to players. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues in the coming months.