A Burgeoning Van Life: How Colorado Became a Hotspot for Campervan Enthusiasts

Whether by choice or necessity, traveling, sleeping and even living in vans has become part of the fabric of American life. Social media abounds with stories and photos. An internet search reveals scores of van life sites. Many apps offer advice, camping locations and access to other van lifers.

The recreational vehicle industry has enjoyed some very good years, more than partly due to COVID-19. The Recreational Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) reported that in 2021, manufacturers shipped more than 600,000 RVs of all types. The fastest-growing segment was Class B campervans, increasing 91.5% year-over-year.

READ: Made in Colorado 2022 — Outdoor Edition 

Colorado is a van life hotspot

Colorado’s scenery and recreational choices made it a natural campervan consumer and outfitter hotspot. A 2018 survey of 725 van owners by Outbound Living ranked Colorado No. 2 among van life states, after California.

The RVIA surveyed Class B campervan demographics, which – much like Colorado’s – trend younger:

  • 42% younger families
  • 45% millennials and Gen-Z 
  • Two-thirds male 
  • More than half without children at home 
  • 44% like outdoor sports 
  • 32% fish 
  • 32% like water sports

Campervan buyers’ motivations included “maintaining control over one’s own itinerary, spending time outdoors and visiting a location with natural beauty.”

Younger van lifers may think they’ve discovered a new, different and romantic lifestyle. Instagram and Facebook pages focus on some of this, highlighting remote employment while shifting locations from ocean to mountains to desert. But van life goes way back.

A short history of vans

Accounts of the Romani (“gypsies”) from Medieval times show these nomads traveling throughout Europe in horse-drawn wagons. A 14th-century monk wrote that they “rarely or never stop in one place for more than 30 days,” and were persecuted wherever they went. 

Motorized campervans debuted in America with the 1910 Pierce-Arrow Touring Landau at the Madison Square Garden Auto Show. It included a fold-down bed and sink. “The Vagabonds” — Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, John Burroughs and Harvey Firestone — outfitted a Lincoln truck for annual camping trips between 1913-1924. 

In 1950, Volkswagen began producing the Type 2, a box on the Beetle 2 chassis. People almost immediately saw it could be adapted for camping. By 1956 the VW Westfalia camper had come to America. Underpowered but appealing, it became symbolic of an alternative lifestyle. Its nickname was “hippie bus,” although it attracted plenty of non-hippies. The VW bus was discontinued in 2014. Volkswagen’s all-electric ID.Buzz, will be marketed for the 2024 model year. 

American-made commercial vans had more power and room than the VW and adapted well to camping. With beds, carpet and often stoves and refrigerators, they also acquired fancier accessories like mood lighting and sound systems, luxurious seating and sleeping options, and distinctive paint jobs. 

A happy medium: The class B campervan

“Recreational vehicle” (RV) encompasses converted buses and semi-trailer trucks (Class A) and motorhomes with a bed over the cab and conveniences like built-in showers and toilets (Class C). In between are Class B vans, large enough to accommodate multiple beds and other amenities, but smaller, more efficient and maneuverable.

Class B campervans were developed beginning in the mid-’70s in Canada, by Roadtrek and Pleasure-Way.

According to Phil Ingrassia, president of the Recreational Vehicle Dealers Association (RVDA), “They kept the flame alive by outfitting vans into real RVs, with kitchens, bathrooms and sleeping that were above and beyond what the early van campers could’ve imagined.” 

Mercedes-Benz Sprinters offered more height and a narrower wheelbase, and their “Eurovan” silhouette has become the U.S. standard. Ford’s Transit was similarly accommodating, and RAM (part of Stellantis) modified its existing vans to European-style standard with ProMaster. These three brands dominate the Class B market.

RV industry giants like Winnebago and Airstream now convert far-from-basic campervans based on Sprinters and ProMasters. Scores of smaller van conversion companies also advise and sell van parts and accessories to DIYers, while primarily building and selling completed units or converting van shells that clients bring to them for conversion.

Campervan entrepreneurs

Matt Felser, co-owner of Dave & Matt Vans, and Eric Miller, co-owner of Tourig, are van life poster boys: enthusiasts and Colorado-based van converters who have lived full or part-time in their campervans. 

Felser and partner Dave Ramsay opened a successful van conversion business in Gypsum. After college, Ramsay joined a New York hedge fund; Felser went ski bumming. Ramsay soon quit finance, converted his first van, and started a small van rental company. 

Felser was teaching Spanish in Vail, “exploring my next vehicle to bike and ski outside of school,” he said. In 2016-2017, “The only way to get a campervan was to get a Winnebago or Roadtrek or get a custom van for nearly $100,000. Not doable.” Instead, he bought a used ProMaster and “watched about a thousand YouTube videos, everything from flooring to electrical to even how to use power tools.” When Ramsay finally arrived, he helped finish the job in about four months. 

Driving cross-country in 2018, people’s interest was a revelation, Felser said, and they saw a business concept. Converting used vans,

We sold one, then two, then four … and now have built 350-plus,” Felser said. 

Dave & Matt Vans focuses primarily on RAM ProMasters. As RAM dealers, they have more access to vehicles. ProMasters handle well, they’re reliable and have the most interior space. “We provide everything you need and nothing you don’t,” Felser said of their ability to keep prices lower while offering maximum design flexibility. 

Expanding to a larger facility in Rifle, they want “to be the largest private manufacturer of RVs in the country,” Felser said. 

The high end of van life

Tourig, based in Golden, occupies a higher price and luxury niche. Co-founder and CEO Eric Miller said his job as a traveling sales rep in the outdoor industry inspired the foundation for Tourig. “I was spending a lot of nights in hotels and in tents and thought there’s got to be a more efficient way to do this.” Before becoming a dad in 2009, Eric spent 150 nights a year for eight years in one of two vans he and partner Paul Bulger converted. “It was fun to watch people’s eyes light up when I would pull in and get out,” Miller said. 

Miller and Bulger, an experienced marine outfitter and skillful carpenter, joined up in 2014. “He understood what it was like to travel in a confined space … it’s the best part of what made us what we are today because of his quality and attention to detail,” Miller said.

They built their first van in Nederland.

“All of a sudden the phone rang and somebody said they wanted one, too. Then it rang again and before you knew it, we had people lined up and needed to hire some staff, and off we went,” Miller said.

Year one it was just two men converting two vans. Then it was 10-12 vans. Tourig now converts about 50 per year. “It allows us to really manage our supply chain, keep quality consistent and always elevated.” Prices begin at $225,000.

Tourig is a licensed Sprinter dealer, so it can purchase vans directly and sell used ones. Tourig branched into Ford Transits in 2021 because, unlike Sprinters, Fords can be serviced almost anywhere. Tourig has doubled its space so it can service any campervans, also expanding production capacity. A full van conversion takes Tourig four to 12 weeks including production, quality control and final detail. “Our guys are artisans. They’re craftsmen and it’s never enough, sometimes to our detriment,” Miller said.

“We’re seeing a lot of people in their 60s and 70s who a few years ago would have gone to a Winnebago or Airstream because that’s what you know.” Still, Miller has respect for what more mass-market manufacturers offer. “I think the RV companies do an amazing job of giving people a lot of stuff for a compelling price. What we provide is an experience.” 

Summit Bodyworks, a subset of Transwest Automotive Group, a  Colorado-based dealer for new and used RVs, trucks and trailers, upfits commercial vehicles for its national clientele. Need a bookmobile or bloodmobile? Summit Bodyworks is the place to go. Although Transwest already sold several mass-produced RV brands, Summit jumped into upfitting Class B campervans in 2019, even before COVID juiced the market.

“We upfit all other vehicles, so why not make that bridge? The Class B market is out of control and continues to rise,” said CEO Meredith Lyons. “The world has taken a different look for how to vacation. Once people see that they can sleep in their own sheets and have their own things, they see it’s a nice way to travel.”

Working out of two buildings in Fort Lupton, Lyons’ team of 15, including the eight-employee production crew, turns out seven units a month when enough Ford and Mercedes-Benz chassis are available. “Supply chains are getting better, but we’re a ways from saying, ‘Oh, they’re good,’” she said. Summit has added Freightliner to its Class B chassis mix.

Who are van lifers?

In the RVIA survey, 4% of RVs were campervans; 65% of owners made $65,000+; two-thirds male; 51% were aged 18 to 54; a majority without children at home. Full-time RV residents skewed older, female and less prosperous. Their top choices were trailers, fifth wheels and motorhomes.

“There’s a certain acceleration of the van market because it offers a lot of things for buyers: viability, flexibility and the chance to go places where you couldn’t go and stay if you didn’t have these types of vehicles,” said RVDA’s Ingrassia. Many said “they didn’t even think of an RV until their [travel] options were limited,” by COVID-19.

Living the part-time van life

Travis Berry bought a Sprinter equipped with a bed and a refrigerator. “Pretty spartan version. For my purposes it is perfect. It can get anywhere – small enough and inconspicuous. You can park it anywhere. Has the comforts I need. Kind of a mobile biking, camping, skiing headquarters.” Berry “lusted after one of those old VW campervans for years.” The Sprinter had “safety stuff and four-wheel-drive … not something I need to worry about breaking down on me.”

Future upgrades? “When I’m done working or when I start to slow down and spend more time in it — getting one with more creature comforts,” including a bathroom for his wife.

He’s driven it around the West — Wyoming for the 2017 solar eclipse and on bike trips around Colorado.

He thinks van owners are “a total tribe. I’m floored at the explosion of [campervans]. I wanted one for a long time, and they were sort of rare, but now if you go to the mountains or ski areas or to a trail, they’re all over the place.”

Phil Hayes found a used Sprinter in Omaha. He did some prep work himself, then worked with a Fort Collins outfitter. “We ended up with a fully converted van for about $65,000 to $70,000.” For his family of four, “It’s a little tight. Sometimes we put the kids in a tent,” he said. His Sprinter has a bed platform and a “garage” for storing gear. 

The Razon family “had been wanting to buy and looking to van experiences – probably around 2019 before the whole COVID thing and didn’t pull the trigger,” Beverly Razon said. A road trip in a rented RV persuaded them. “The kids loved it, the dogs loved it.”

They found their 170-inch Sprinter in Kansas and outfitted it in Salt Lake City since the demand for conversions in Colorado was so great. With two pre-teens, they needed four seats, two beds, a kitchen, and space for gear and their aging dog. The Razons have made long hauls in the Sprinter. With fears about flying during the pandemic, it made travel possible. Being able to work on the road was also a game-changer.

The future is just over the next hill

Looking down the road, Ingrassia thinks the future looks bright — and electric.  “There’s a lot of potential for the van market, especially as people take a look at the features these newer vans have. A whole new contingent of people interested in EV vans will be leading.”

 

Tim Jackson is president and CEO of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, the voice of the automotive retail industry throughout the state, representing 260 dealers. Learn more at www.colorado.auto  

Water Pipeline Back in Play? — The Future of Colorado’s Water Distribution

From Aaron Million’s 12th-floor office in downtown Fort Collins, you can see Wyoming in the distance. Depending upon the route, it can be 3,000 feet uphill. The downhill side of that equation, however, has become a key feature in Million’s pipeline vision. 

Million wants to import water 338 miles from the Green River in Utah just below Flaming Gorge Dam. The water would flow through pipelines paralleling Interstate 80 across Wyoming before tumbling into Colorado’s northern Front Range. In that tumble, Million and his company, Water Horse Resources, say they intend to build pumped-storage hydro projects to generate electricity when most needed.  

The company’s diversion plans call for delivering up to 55,000 acre-feet of water annually to the Fort Collins and Greeley area. This would be roughly comparable in size to water from the Winter Park area imported to Denver and its suburbs through the Moffat Tunnel.  

That new pumped-storage element will produce income along the way, but the water itself will have many other uses. “Almost all of the water supplies in Colorado are seasonal,” Million says.

“We will be able to deliver water throughout the year. But it is also a project that will have environmental benefits by augmenting existing stream flows, helping renewable green energy, helping the agriculture side, and alleviating some of the municipal demand. Most of the projects in Colorado were developed with singular purposes. We are not.” 

Million’s project may be the most audacious ambition yet in Colorado’s century-long quest to dismantle the geography of native water flows. In Colorado, more than 70% of the water originates west of the Continental Divide, but close to 90% of the state’s population lives to the east, mostly along the Front Range. The Moffat Tunnel, which began diversions in 1936, was the first major transmountain diversion. Now, the mountains have become a Swiss cheese of diversion tunnels. Anywhere from 30% to 50% of water along the Front Range originates on the Western Slope in any given year. As well, Western Slope water augments native flows to irrigate farms along the South Platte and Arkansas rivers and their tributaries. 

READ — America’s Energy Future Depends on Cultivating the Next Generation of Talent 

This, however, would be different from all others. It would be a private enterprise, while all the other major projects have had public sponsors. It would also divert water from another state. That adds a complication. 

Million, now 62, first conceived of this new plumbing in 2002. It was a summer of searing drought. Denver spray-painted the parched grass green at City Park before an unveiling of a statue. He was then a graduate student at Colorado State University. Four years later, I met him one afternoon at a restaurant on College Avenue in Fort Collins. ColoradoBiz delivered the first story. 

Cobiz 2006 Cover
Aaron Million on the cover of ColoradoBiz, Oct. 2006

Those two decades could not have been easy for Million. Colorado’s wizened water leaders pushed back. High cost and high risk, they said. He’s had trouble securing permits. But after spending four or five intermittent years on the project during the last two decades, he’s back at it full-time. 

Nine months ago, Million announced a new relationship with Florida-based MasTec, an engineering and construction company that is ranked 429 on the Fortune 500. Even before then, Million had recalculated the project to harness the power of falling water to generate electricity. The concept is called pumped-storage hydro. “In the long run, the renewable piece will be one of the largest in the West,” he says. 

READ — Taming Agriculture’s Energy Hogs

Colorado has very few pumped-storage hydro projects. The largest is Cabin Creek, near Georgetown. Water is pumped from a reservoir along the road to Guanella Pass at night when electricity generally is most available and at the lowest cost, then released to flow downhill and generate electricity when needed to meet peak demands. The total capacity is 324 megawatts, equal to a modest-sized coal-burning power plant. As they stretch to accommodate higher and higher quantities of emissions-free but intermittent renewable generation, electrical utilities will need more storage. Pumped-storage hydro is one option. Several sites have been identified in the Grand Junction, Craig and Hayden areas. 

The Green River water, once arrived in the northern Front Range, would have other purposes, too.  Million reports interest in up to 400,000 acre-feet. This interest reflects the rapid population growth. Places that were small towns a half-century ago — think Timnath and Berthoud, Windsor and Johnston, Erie and Lafayette – have in some cases become small cities. “This region is a job-generating factory, and that is what is bringing people here,” says Jeff Stahla, public information officer for Northern Water. 

Northern Water operates Colorado’s largest transmountain diversion. The project diverts an average 261,000 acre-feet annually from the Colorado River at Grand Lake through the Alva Adams Tunnel to the Estes Valley. From there, the water is distributed across Northern’s service territory from Broomfield to Wellington and along the South Platte River to Julesburg. In 1957, when the federally financed work was completed, the Colorado-Big Thompson project delivered 97% of the water to agriculture. Today, it’s roughly 50%. 

Prices for Colorado-Big Thompson water have been rising rapidly. A chart assembled by Northern Water shows shares in 2012 selling for a little more than $7,000. This summer, Lafayette paid $70,000. That’s roughly $100,000 an acre-foot. Eyebrows were raised. Thornton and Aurora, meanwhile, plan to import water from the Fort Collins-Greeley area. The cities began securing those agricultural water rights decades ago. 

These numbers bolster Million’s case for revenues. His new backer is the largest pipeline company in North America, he says. “They know their business. They know their costs.” Those costs come in at $2.5 billion, he reports, compared to $5 billion in potential revenues. 

But can water be had from the Green River? Million insists there are no major obstacles. Most challenging in the permitting process will be securing the right to cross federal lands, he says. This is despite the proposed pipeline paralleling many other pipelines, although the others have been laid for fossil fuels.  

More troublesome yet may be getting a permit from Utah to divert from the Green. The state has denied the application by Water Horse Resources. Million argues that the 1948 Upper Colorado River Compact accommodates diversions by one state from another within the Colorado River Basin. That is why Santa Fe and Albuquerque can divert water from the San Juan River near Pagosa Springs before that water flows into New Mexico. The Green River flows into Colorado for 40 miles on its way to join the Colorado River near Moab. 

Million is an outsized, colorful character. He seems to have no fear. You can imagine him picking up a rattlesnake. He has, he confirms, and in fact had a pet rattlesnake while an elementary school student then living near Trinidad. He was schooled mostly in Boulder but spent his summers and a year or two of primary school living on a family ranch along the Green River near the eponymously named town in Utah.  

His explanations are littered with cows, horses and hats. For example, in reviewing his long-dormant journey with this idea, he reports an evolving detachment. “When you let go of the reins of a horse, sometimes it has a tendency to find its own trail. And I think we’ve done that here,” he says of the new energy-focused plans. 

That horse has been steered by the massive game-changer of the warming climate. The risks predicted decades ago are being realized. This has driven the enormous push to shift to renewables, creating new business opportunities, including the potential for new pumped-storage hydro plans. 

Climate change has also exacerbated the long-festering problems in the Colorado River Basin. The interstate compact adopted 100 years ago November by the seven basin states assumed roughly 20 million acre-feet of river flows. In this century they have averaged 12.5 million acre-feet. The river ceased to reach the Pacific Ocean in the 1990s except in one artificial discharge from dams. If climate models are accurate – and they have now been validated by time – the water situation will worsen.  

This sounds grim. Actually, it’s worse. Approximately 25% of the river flows are apportioned to 22 federally recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin. The tribes have only partially claimed them. They are, however, senior to all others — including the diversions by cities along Colorado’s Front Range. This cart has been upset, apples everywhere. 

Droughts do come and go. But when drought departs, the warming climate will remain. A 2017 study, for example, found roughly half the drying now observed in the Colorado River Basin was the result of human-caused global warming. Other studies have come to similar conclusions. 

Might the warming climate actually deliver more snow or at least rain? That’s possible. Climate models 15 years ago suggested the San Juan Mountains would become drier, and they have become so. The San Juan River that flows through Pagosa Springs has had a 30% reduction. 

Colorado’s northern mountains might actually get more snow or at least rain. Million pins part of his argument on a wetter future roughly north of Interstate 70. Jeff Lukas, a water and climate consultant from Lafayette who co-authored a book about climate change impacts, says Million is not entirely wrong. “But it’s not a free pass out of climate change,” he adds. Even if the Green River in Wyoming does get more snow and rain, that gain may be more than offset by increased evaporation. 

The upper Green River – the portion in Wyoming, upstream from Million’s proposed diversion – has had 17% less precipitation in the 21st century than before.  A 2022 study by researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and other institutions found that “the Green River Valley area may experience large drought pressures from increasing aridity combined with changes in the seasonality of runoff contribution to streamflow and snowmelt upstream.” 

So, will there be water to divert? Million argues yes. He points out that Colorado and the other upper-basin states have not been taking their share of water apportioned under the Colorado River Compact. That’s the position of Colorado and other upper-basin states. In this view, it’s time for California and Arizona to get their houses into order, as they have been the principal reasons for the decline of the two big reservoirs, Mead and Powell. 

Million contends the 1948 Upper Colorado River Compact clearly allows Colorado the diversions, even if from Utah. After all, New Mexico diverts water from the San Juan River near Pagosa Springs, before that river enters New Mexico. It’s analogous to what Million and Water Horse Resources want to do, but from an entirely different era. It was completed in 1976. 

Many in Colorado’s water establishment – which Million clearly is not – fret that an additional diversion, particularly of the size of Million’s pipeline, will put Colorado close to dangerous edges. “Particularly when there are no customers for the project,” says Peter Fleming, the general counsel for the Colorado River District, a Glenwood Springs-based organization that represents most of Colorado’s Western Slope.  

That’s an ultra-touchy subject. Colorado water law does not allow speculation. Water has to be used or the right to it is lost. Million says he has interest from 17 different users. He has not, however, identified them. 

But even if the lower-basin states have been using more than their share, there’s also the issue – which I first wrote about for ColoradoBiz in 2009 in a story called “Tapped Out – about whether Colorado might risk being forced to curtail diversions from the Colorado River. This is because of a provision in the 1922 compact that says the upper basin states cannot cause less water than 7.5 million acre-feet to flow past Lee Ferry (near the Grand Canyon) on a rolling 10-year average.  

That messy situation, both legal and political, is one reason the South Metro Water Supply Association pulled back from a parallel plan to Million’s. The Greenwood Village-based organization – which includes Castle Rock, Parker and 12 other water providers — had created the plans after Million first outlined the vision. It was called the Colorado-Wyoming Coalition, and it had organizations from both states. That interest has waned, at least among South Metro members. 

“Complications with a Flaming Gorge project, given the cost, needed infrastructure and the myriad of issues involving the Colorado River (which, as we know, conditions of which have worsened significantly in recent years) certainly served to shift attention to other projects,” says Lisa Darling, executive director. “For example, one of my members, Parker Water, has been working with agricultural interests and other partners on the lower South Platte on a project called the Platte Valley Water Partnership, an innovative water project that will provide sustainable water supplies and support continued ag production.” 

What exactly the Fortune 500 company brings to the table, that’s not clear. Million says the agreement is confidential, but he does say MasTec will have a construction stake and also be a customer for the water. The company has constructed a 51-megawatt wind farm near Burlington and a solar project in Douglas County. 

On the face of it, this looks to be a high-risk but potentially high-reward project. Million says that’s backward. “The fact that we’ve landed a Fortune 500 publicly traded company would reflect the opposite,” he says. “Publicly traded companies don’t enter into investments with high risk. They’ve done their homework.” 

As for Million’s quest, he reports devoting six or seven years in the past two decades to this quest but also says he has been involved in other things. But he does acknowledge the perception of a Sisyphean undertaking. He tells about riding an elevator in Fort Collins with an attorney who called out to him. “So you’re the Walt Disney of water,” she said. 

Disney, notes Million, was rejected 300 times by bankers with his vision of Mickey Mouse and a park. 

 

Allen Best has been writing about Colorado water steadily for the last 20 years for ColoradoBiz, Headwaters magazine and now for his own publication, Big Pivots. 

Live from Colorado: The Future of Sports Betting 

On a sunny Saturday afternoon last October, Denverite Richard Terry did something audacious: bet that the Oklahoma Sooners would win a football game.  

It was midway through the annual “Red River Showdown” against the University of Texas. The Sooners were getting drubbed 28-7. Terry, a 37-year-old corporate relocation specialist, was about to leave a friend’s home in Aurora when his buddy tossed out a wild idea: Bet on Oklahoma to win it straight up.  

The suggestion seemed implausible, but Terry listened to his friend’s case: Oklahoma had a history of coming from behind, and the Sooners still had home-field advantage. With a few breaks, Oklahoma conceivably could rise up. Intrigued, Terry fired up the DraftKings app on his smartphone and checked the odds: eight-to-one for Oklahoma to storm back. Why not, he figured. He put $5 down and headed out.  

Sure enough, Oklahoma began making a run. Alerted by a text message, Terry hurried home to watch backup quarterback Caleb Williams orchestrate one of the great comebacks in Oklahoma football history. With three seconds on the clock, Sooner halfback Kennedy Brooks romped into the end zone from 33 yards out. Terry’s $5 bet instantly turned into $40.  

 

In a state where hundreds of thousands of players bet billions of dollars annually on sports, it was a tiny wager. But encapsulated in that moment were the ingredients of what some people believe will be a revolution not only in how fans bet on sports, but watch them, too.  

It’s called “in-game betting,” and it’s just what the name suggests: wagers made live and in the moment during real-time play. It could be whether Rockies’ hitter C.J. Cron will get on base in his next at- bat. It could be whether Real Madrid can sustain a shutout over the final 10 minutes. Or as Richard Terry experienced, it could be whether the Oklahoma Sooners can make a late charge to win a game.  

In-game wagers differ from old-school sports bets, like whether the Broncos can beat the spread against the Chiefs. These sorts of “moneyline” bets have long been the bread-and-butter for the sports-gambling business. But they’re somewhat passive. Once a bet is made, bettors can just as easily go shopping for groceries and check the final score later.  

Now, with smartphones and wireless data networks, betting on sports is a whole new ballgame, with live, in-game betting a rising factor.    

Fantasy successor 

Kyle Christensen is the chief marketing officer for PointsBet, an Australia-based sports-gambling company with its U.S. headquarters in Denver. He makes a convincing argument for in-game betting as a sort of souped-up successor to fantasy sports: It’s a way to enrich the betting experience, keep fans interested in games (even blowouts), appeal to an increasingly discriminating sports-betting market, and create a positive impact on the broader sports-entertainment experience.  

Momentum seems to favor his argument. Live betting now accounts for roughly half of all PointsBet wagers, up from less than a third as of late 2021. As interest grows, PointsBet and others are working feverishly to keep up with the demand by conceiving of a never-ending torrent of live betting propositions. During the 2022 “March Madness” NCAA men’s basketball tournament, for example, PointsBet offered nearly 60 live-game bets, letting players gamble on everything from which team would prevail in a four-minute interval to “lightning bets” on which team would score the next point.  

Christensen grew up in Loveland, cultivating a passion for the Rockies and Broncos before heading west to work for media giants Facebook, Fox Sports and Netflix. He’s now back in Colorado, working at PointsBet’s headquarters office on 17th Street in Denver. 

PointsBet employs close to 200 Colorado software developers, graphic designers, customer agents and other professionals who work at king-sized monitors behind an expansive succession of floor-to-ceiling windowed rooms, including a “dugout” space that overlooks Coors Field. To be sure, this is not the backroom gambling operation of a bygone era: the aesthetic divide between PointsBet’s sleek, high-tech downtown office and the streetwise bookmaker of old could not be starker.  

Sports-biz

Many of these employees are focused on making live betting a locus of distinction for PointsBet. The company has invested in technology designed to assure fast response and continuous “uptime” application availability – both keys for making live betting work. Christensen is convinced the winners in a crowded Colorado sportsbook sector won’t be the gambling giants that are spending heaps of money on advertising, but instead will be those that can out-perform the competition when it comes to the basics of the betting experience. These elements range from how quickly cash gets transferred to accounts, to how well back-end customer service agents handle customer inquiries. One big goal for PointsBet’s tech developers is reducing latency – the micro-second interval that occurs after someone presses a keypad button and when an instruction is completed. With live, in-game betting, low latency becomes a critical point of distinction, which is one reason PointsBet has insisted on building and managing its software in-house, rather than contracting with an outside provider.   

Sports engagement 

Live betting also has implications for how people fundamentally engage with sports. As Richard Terry points out, having a betting interest can captivate even casual fans. When Terry and his pal put money down on the Oklahoma Sooners last fall, it wasn’t because of Sooner loyalty. “We’re not really even [University of Oklahoma] fans,” Terry said. But when crunch time came in the second half, he was riveted to the screen. Having a few dollars on the Sooners that day “kept me invested,” he said.  

For Christensen and others, this is the point. They see in-game betting contributing to sustained fan interest in games that might otherwise lose their luster: Think eighth inning with the Dodgers up 10-1 at Coors Field and two outs already recorded. It’s a near-certainty that the fan who plops down $3 on whether Charlie Blackmon will reach first base has a keener rooting interest than the ticketholder who’s heading for the exits. The same holds true for those watching on television: PointsBet’s alliance with NBC-owned regional sports networks is designed to use betting possibilities as a foundation for new ways to present and engage fans on the electronic screen. 

To be sure, Colorado isn’t the only state where in-game betting is becoming a thing. But because Colorado was early to the legalized sports-betting game (beginning in May 2020) and because of its prominence nationally – the state ranks sixth in the U.S. for total sports-betting wagers, per publisher Legal Sports Report – it offers a preview of what may be ahead. The sportsbook MaximBet launched its sports betting operations in Colorado before any other state partly because the sports betting population here is more experienced than in other states, according to Doug Terfehr, vice president of brand marketing. After racking up $18 million in total sports wagers during its first six months, MaximBet, like PointsBet, has seen a major swing toward in-game action.

“Colorado bettors love in-game betting,” Terfehr said.  

Sportsbookhr Hires11

Dan Hartman, director of Colorado’s Division of Gaming, thinks one reason Colorado stands out as an archetype for the sports-betting future is because of a symbiotic marriage of interests between bookmakers and the agency that regulates them. The common interest here is money — the more action sportsbooks take in, and the better they are at managing net proceeds, the more money Colorado collects. The formula used in Colorado is that sportsbook operators pay back 10% of net gambling proceeds to the state, expressly to support big-ticket water projects. In the first 12 months after legalized betting began, Colorado had booked some $2.3 billion in wagers, with sportsbooks, after doling out cash to winners, keeping net proceeds of just under $61 million.  

Because more bets mean more tax revenue, Hartman says Colorado is determined to work in partnership with sportsbook operators to assure compliance on one hand and to sustain innovation on the other.  

Still, guardrails rear up. Earlier this year Hartman’s agency turned down a proposed bet submitted by one Colorado sportsbook operator: a wager on what color of Gatorade would be splashed down the neck of the winning coach after the 2022 Super Bowl. The reason? That particular event hinges on a randomized outcome that’s not tied to game performance – a no-no in the state’s rulebook. “It’s not that I don’t like Gatorade,” deadpans Hartman, an Aurora Central High School graduate who used to sweep sidewalks at the Mile Hi Kennel Club, one of three racing facilities his father owned.

Changing market 

PointsBet’s Christensen and others think Colorado’s sports gambling arena looks very different today from what it’s likely to become over the next few years. As of May, 25 sportsbook operators were licensed to take bets on sports in Colorado, with four more in line for later this year. This collective runs a wide gamut: from homegrown operations to big national players like DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM. Bets can be made in person, at several Colorado casino sportsbooks, but more than 95% happen over smartphones or other devices. Hartman has counted 850,000 sportsbook app downloads so far in Colorado, indicating a wide swath of players in a state with an adult population of roughly 3 million. Like Terry, who commonly makes bets of less than $10, most players risk fairly small amounts: The publicly held DraftKings reported average monthly spending per sports-betting customer was $77 last year.  

Within this environment, there’s general consensus that a shakeout is inevitable, which is one reason the national giants are spending mightily to capture market share. The advertising industry research firm Kantar estimates that sports betting operators plowed more than $660 million into U.S. advertising in 2021. That flow of money has created a cash-injection for Denver-area television and radio stations, along with media and sports personalities who have been enlisted to help spread the word. In May, the Rockies’ Blackmon became the first Major League Baseball player to endorse a sportsbook, lending his name and influence to MaximBet. 

Besides advertising, some sportsbooks are trying to out-do one another with come-ons that promise easy payouts for first-time bettors. But attempting to out-spend the competition is a game Christensen and PointsBet, along with others, are determined not to play. Instead, they’re looking to make a mark elsewhere, figuring that over time, as the betting market matures, a better customer experience is what will differentiate the leaders.  

The biggest unknown of all is whether in-game betting, an arena where Colorado sportsbooks are taking a lead role, will have the halo effect Christensen and others are relying on. If it does, it could have a powerful ripple effect across the entire sports-entertainment ecosystem, benefiting teams, leagues, owners, television networks and just about any business – even local sports pubs – that stands to profit from stronger fan interest.  

In the background, technology marches on. Early on in the development of legal sports betting in Colorado, Hartman and a few colleagues evaluated the “geo-fencing” chops of the state’s online sportsbooks by driving north on I-25 and traversing back-and-forth across the Colorado-Wyoming border. True to promise, bets they attempted to place over a smartphone within state lines went through like a snap. Those they tried north of the border were intercepted and rejected. The lesson: Whether your bets are live game wagers or classic moneyline bets, in order get in on the sports-betting revolution in Colorado you actually have to be in … Colorado. 

 

 

Stewart Schley JpegStewart Schley writes about sports, media and technology from Denver. Read this and Schley’s past columns on the Web at cobizmag.com and email him at [email protected]