Colorado Votes To Allow Cities To Raise $100 Max Bet At CasinosPassage Of Amendment 77 Will Allow Cripple Creek, Black Hawk And Central City To Decide Whether To Raise The Current Limit |
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Voters in Colorado passed Amendment 77 Tuesday, which will allow the three cities which house the state’s commercial casinos to change the maximum bet allowed without needing a statewide vote.
Residents of Black Hawk, Central City and Cripple Creek will be able to raise or lower the current $100 maximum bet in place at Colorado’s 33 casinos. According to a report from the Denver Post, the initiative will also let the cities use tax revenue derived from gambling revenue for the local community colleges.
The measure passed with nearly 60 percent of the vote and amended the state constitution to allow the cities to take control of the casinos.
Gambling proponents in the state gathered more than 200,000 signatures last July to get the issue on the ballot this election cycle. It had support from former Colorado Senate President Bill Cadman and former Cripple Creek Mayor Bruce Brown.
“We appreciate that Coloradans supported our town’s right to determine our future so we can improve economic opportunities for the people who work and live here,” Brown told the Post. “Things won’t change overnight, but I believe this will help us get back on our feet.”
With the current rules surrounding the maximum bets, Colorado poker rooms are unable to spread true no-limit hold’em cash games. Most are technically considered spread limit games with a max bet of $100.
Unless one of the cities opts to remove the max bet entirely, that will stay the same, but the group that collected the signatures last summer believes that the cities will opt to raise the limits, which could make some of the small-stakes games function as no-limit, depending on what the limit is raised to.