Poll: 50% of Country Approves of Sports Betting Being Legalized
Scott Morris | November 4, 2016
A just released poll has found that close to half of the people in the U.S. approved of sports betting becoming legal. One of the biggest reasons was that such a larger number of people are betting on sports already.
The poll – Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind – was released on Wednesday of this week and found that 48% support making a change to current federal laws to legalize sports betting across the country. The poll found that 39% are opposed.
One senior lecturer at Fairleigh Dickinson said that sports betting does not have any access issue attached to it in the U.S. The majority of betting on sports across the U.S. is easy to do but takes place within the shadows and violates federal law, added the lecturer.
This poll comes at a time when New Jersey continues with its eight-year battle against federal law that restricts legalized sports betting to just those states which met a deadline in 1991 to legalize it – Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon.
Lawmakers in New Jersey have another possible way in which to sidestep the ban that involves a repeal of the regulations for sports betting in the state that will be followed by the limited reinstitution of the restrictions.
The horse racing industry in the state is also asking the United States Supreme Court to rule on the matter.
The poll was conducted by telephone to reach over 1,000 adults across the country and has a plus or minus 3.7 percentage points margin of area.
Amongst people who are in favor of sports betting, the two biggest reasons that were given were many people already are betting on sports and legalized betting on sports would help with more state revenue.
Amongst the opponents, the top concerns were the fostering of gambling addition, the possible involvement of factions of organized crime and worries over the integrity of the different sports games.
The poll found as well that although there is more support for legalized betting on sports there is not a want for additional casinos. Over 68% said that currently there are enough casinos in the U.S.
