
Table tennis ranks among the most-bet sports for online gamblers in Colorado
Summary
- A published article reports that table tennis was the third most-wagered-on sport among Colorado's online sports bettors in May 2026, after professional basketball and baseball.
- The article says a few local and national outlets have reported table tennis's high ranking among sports bets in Colorado.
- It says table tennis holds a similarly high ranking in Oregon, the only other state to publish sport-by-sport breakdowns of gambling revenue.
- The article argues that for many bettors, wagering on table tennis works like a mindless, by-the-second slot machine rather than an informed bet on a player.
Reactions
- The article's author forecasts that sports gambling is heading toward something stranger and more destructive than a $100 bet on the New York Yankees to cover the spread.
- The article's author argues that betting on table tennis involves neither sports nor betting in any real sense.
- The article's author argues the wagers are not on table tennis itself but on a simulacrum of the sport created solely to create more ways to gamble.
Timeline newest first
A published article reported that among Colorado residents betting on sports online in May 2026, table tennis ranked third, behind professional basketball and baseball.
The article reported table tennis holds a similarly high ranking among wagered sports in Oregon and likely in every state that allows sports gambling.
Sources newest first
Why online gamblers are obsessed with table tennisIn a Vox article, Jack Meserve argues that table tennis, the third most-bet sport among Colorado's online gamblers in May 2026, has been engineered into a by-the-second slot machine, wagered not on the sport itself but on a simulacrum built for betting. He suspects the ranking holds in every legal sports-gambling state, and that gambling is heading somewhere stranger and more destructive than a $100 bet on the Yankees.
Background newest first
An N.B.A. Player Got Hooked on Sports Betting. Soon, He Became the BetA New Yorker article traces how Jontay Porter — brother of N.B.A. star Michael Porter, Jr. — saw a promising career undone by knee injuries, fell into a ruinous gambling addiction that cost him millions, and agreed with a bookie to rig his own stats in a scheme that got him banned from the league. It also follows FanDuel and DraftKings' rise into what it calls the largest expansion of gambling in American history, arguing their V.I.P. programs chase the addicts who lose the most, while Porter, now in therapy, mends his family and bets no more.
I Deliberately Bet Like a Problem Gambler. DraftKings Made Me a VIP.ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson spent 10 weeks deliberately betting like a compulsive gambler to test sportsbooks' safeguards, losing more than $12,500 on DraftKings — which rewarded him with VIP perks, bigger deposit buttons, and relentless promotions between sparse responsible-gaming prompts. FanDuel declined to make him a VIP and once refused his $500 wager, while DraftKings says its system worked as designed.
From Pill Mills to Prop Bets: Prediction Markets and Mobile Sports Betting Apps Are Fueling America’s Next Addiction CrisisAlan Elrod argues at Liberal Currents that prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket and mobile sports betting apps from DraftKings and FanDuel are fueling an addiction crisis through prop bets, parlays, and frictionless in-game wagering, drawing a parallel to the opioid crisis described in "Dopesick" and "Empire of Pain." Citing surveys of problem gambling, a bettor's $100,000 losses, and researchers' warnings, he suspects that by 2046 we will wonder how we allowed this, though DraftKings' CEO called banning prop bets "crazy."