Colorado’s legal sports betting market made its May 1 launch target, providing a rare bit of positive news for the state’s struggling casinos.

Last Friday, four Colorado-licensed online sportsbooks opened their digital doors to the state’s bettors, becoming the 18th US state to offer some form of legal betting. Six operators were officially cleared for takeoff by state regulators, but only four – Roar Digital’s BetMGM, Rush Street Interactive’s BetRivers, DraftKings and FanDuel – actually launched.

The lack of urgency in launching betting operations has a lot to do with the current dearth of major sports on which to wager due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. There are also no retail betting options at present due to the pandemic-related shutdown of all land-based casino operations on March 16.

The shutdown was reflected in the state’s official figures for the month of March, which saw the 33 casino operators report gaming revenue of just $31.9m, a 56% decline from March 2019’s returns. April’s revenue will be flat zero, and even if operators do get the nod to relaunch operations this month, it will likely be on a significantly reduced capacity basis.