Results from New Survey About Legalizing Online Gambling

March 13, 2010 | News Category: Online Casinos

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Recently, the Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll about legalizing online gambling in the United States was conducted, and the conclusions have been released. The conclusions, which have surprised many in the online gambling world, show that more than half the respondents are not keen to have the online gambling laws changed at this time. Although the results of the poll are expected to be quite accurate, public opinion has been known to change fairly quickly.

The results of the survey show that of the 1,000 respondents, two-thirds would be opposed to changing the current gambling laws in the United States, since they do not feel that online bets should be placed. 53% of the respondents do not want sports betting to take place on the results of college sports events, and any other professional sports events. The reason for this seems to be that there is much concern about game fixing, which would destroy the integrity of the sports. 39% however, said that since there is already illegal sports gambling, it would make sense for the government to legalize the betting in order to tax it.

Similarly, many US citizens feel the same way about all forms of online gambling and online casinos. They would prefer that they are legalized and taxed, since they continue to operate in an unclear legal status, and are therefore not taxed at all, providing larger amounts for the online casino owners, and contributing nothing to the US government.

62% of the respondents said that they had gambled at casinos at least once in their lives. One third of respondents noted that either they or a member of their household had bet in casinos in the past year. This shows that the respondents to the poll were not biased against gambling.

Peter Woolley, the director of the PublicMind poll, holds the opinion that public opinion regarding sports betting or other types of betting could change very quickly. He had the following to say about sports gambling: "Keep your eye on these numbers. If some states allow sports betting and profit by it, other states will want to follow."

Although Woolley did not specifically mention the same being true about other forms of online gambling, it is logical that the same would be true for online casinos.

The Associated Press reports that a poll by PublicMind is expected to have a margin of error of about three percent. The poll was conducted on a random sample of 1,000 adults across the United States, who were contacted by telephone.