After its legalization on the statewide ballot in November 2019, sports betting hit the thumbs of the public via a seemingly endless list of smartphone apps on May 1, 2020.

In the five months between legalization passing with 51.41% of the vote – 800,745 yes votes in an off-year election compared with 756,712 nays – the world had changed drastically for Coloradans considering wagering.

There was this thing called the novel coronavirus, and the ensuing lockdown governmental response. This meant many of us were at home, working or not, but few if any sports games were being played during the lockdowns.

Then beginning, for all intents and purposes, with The Match: Champions for Charity golf showdown in late May 2020, where Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning teamed up to take on Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady in the first major American sporting event since the country shut down. Coloradans wagered early and often.

A Gazette report last week explained how in the first full year of legalized sports betting, Coloradans wagered $2.3 billion – even with the sports world routinely upended by virus-related cancellations.

Now, more than two years since legalization, it’s clear many Coloradans have welcomed at-your-fingertips mobile-phone-based sports betting much like they did with legalized marijuana nearly a decade prior – with open arms, open minds and frequent purchases (in this case, PayPal and credit-card instant deposits).

But, in that tender time for Coloradans post-May 2020 when so many fell into unhealthy habits at home – whether drug and alcohol use, overconsumption of social media or gambling – did this nascent industry hold up its end of the bargain from a professional, moral and governmental standpoint?

While it’s only right to celebrate and commend the industry for giving the voters what they want and generating hefty tax revenue for our state and citizens – which amounts to tens of millions – the industry, and namely the entity commissioned with overseeing it, has gotten off to a flawed start via a relative Wild-Wild-West watchdog approach.

As The Gazette reported last week, the Office of the State Auditor maligned the state’s Division of Gaming for handing out licenses to sports betting proprietors in an incompetent and improper manner, meaning their processes to investigate operators to verify qualification via requisite documentation failed.

For example, auditors said 35 of the 39 casinos licensed for sports betting or internet sports betting operators held temporary licenses as of March, suggesting the state only conducted limited background investigations. And, in five of those cases, auditors found the division “did not complete the minimum background investigative procedures required for a temporary license.”

The audit also found major discrepancies between the number of wagers operators reported and daily and monthly tax-filing totals, with one variation cited at $1 million.

And there were also issues with how some casinos handled operating losses, auditors claiming the state missed out on $706,000 in sports betting tax revenues during the first year due to the industry’s poor handling of the tax liability of free-bet credits – a feature casinos use to incentivize new customers to become routine depositors.

In the wake of this audit, gaming officials have promised to follow through on the 10 recommendations auditors made. After a COVID-19 two-year era of state government routinely slipping up, we hope it’s a genuine effort – especially considering the number of Coloradans whose hard-earned money is fueling this new industry.

Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board