Like it or not, legalized sports betting is coming to more states after essentially being just a Las Vegas thing for the last 75-plus years. How do Americans feel about this?
New Jersey-based Fairleigh Dickinson University has conducted a poll that shows half of Americans favoring legalized sports betting across the United States, largely because they support the additional tax revenue it could bring for states.
Another finding of the poll? People believe that legalized gambling should be expanded because people are already betting illegally anyway.
By a two-to-one ratio, poll respondents did not believe states should share some of the tax revenue from sports betting with professional leagues, which have sought a so-called “integrity fee” that would give them a portion of bets taken.
However, just over a third of poll respondents opposed the expansion of sports betting altogether, most commonly because of fears it will spread gambling addiction and organized crime and will make sporting events less fair.
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