{"id":327331,"date":"2025-10-23T20:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T20:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/327331\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T20:28:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T20:28:10","slug":"what-polling-shows-americans-think-about-legal-sports-betting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/327331\/","title":{"rendered":"What polling shows Americans think about legal sports betting"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 As legalized sports betting<\/a> expands, recent polling suggests that Americans have become increasingly critical of its role in U.S. society and sports \u2014 although they\u2019re more tolerant of it for professional sports. <\/p>\n

Betting scandals<\/a> have multiplied since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling<\/a> in May 2018 struck down a federal law that barred sports betting in most states. That includes a wave of incidents involving athletes and officials. Most recently, dozens of people, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, were arrested in connection with a federal investigation into sports betting and illegal gambling<\/a>, authorities said Thursday.<\/p>\n

In the years since the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling, sports betting has brought revenue to state governments<\/a>, but it\u2019s also prompted concerns about the potential for wrongdoing<\/a>, as well as the impact on athletes.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Americans think about the impact of legal sports betting, according to recent polling:<\/p>\n

More think legal sports betting has a negative impact on sports and society than in 2022<\/p>\n

Americans are more skeptical of legal sports betting than they were a few years ago, according to a Pew Research Center poll<\/a> conducted over the summer. The survey found that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults say the fact that sports betting is now legal in much of the country is \u201ca bad thing\u201d for society and sports, up from about one-third in July 2022.<\/p>\n

Many Americans continue to say sports betting is \u201cneither a good nor bad\u201d thing for sports and society, while few say it\u2019s \u201ca good thing\u201d for either.<\/p>\n

Young men are particularly likely to have soured on sports betting\u2019s social impact. About half of men under age 30 now say legal sports betting is a bad thing for society, up from 22% in 2022. <\/p>\n

At the same time, young men are more likely than older adults to say they\u2019ve bet money on sports in the past year. But 34% of people who have placed a sports bet in the past year still say legal sports betting is bad for society, up from 23% three years ago.<\/p>\n

Most say betting should be legal for professional sports but not college<\/p>\n

Many Americans distinguish between betting on professional and college sports, according to an AP-NORC poll from February<\/a>. <\/p>\n

That survey shows that about 6 in 10 Americans think gambling on professional sports should be legal in their state, but only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults say the same thing about legalized wagering on college sports. More than half oppose legal betting on college sports.<\/p>\n

A Quinnipiac poll from June<\/a> found, similarly, that 60% of U.S. adults think legal betting on college sports is a bad thing, while 47% say this about legal betting on professional sports.<\/p>\n

The Pew poll shows that awareness of sports betting has grown over the past few years \u2013 63% say they\u2019ve heard or read \u201ca lot\u201d or \u201ca little\u201d about the fact that sports betting is now broadly legal, up from 56% in 2022. But that hasn\u2019t led to an uptick in support for legalization. Americans are about as likely to say betting on professional or college sports should be legal as they were in 2019, according to the AP-NORC survey.<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s betting on sports?<\/p>\n

Younger adults are more likely than older adults to have bet money on sports in the past year, according to the Pew poll, with about 3 in 10 adults under age 30 saying this, compared with only 12% of adults age 65 or older.<\/p>\n

Black and Hispanic adults are also more likely than white or Asian adults to have placed a bet, although the gap isn\u2019t as wide.<\/p>\n

The AP-NORC poll found that while about 14% of U.S. adults say they \u201cfrequently\u201d or \u201coccasionally\u201d place bets on college or professional sports online using betting or fantasy sports websites or apps, it\u2019s more common in casinos. About one-quarter of U.S. adults say they have bet on sports in person at casinos at least \u201coccasionally.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest scandal<\/p>\n

Billups and Rozier were arrested along with more than 30 other people in two criminal cases alleging sprawling schemes to rake in millions of dollars by rigging sports bets and poker games involving Mafia families, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Rozier\u2019s lawyer, Jim Trusty, accused the FBI of aiming for \u201cmisplaced glory\u201d by embarrassing the professional athlete with a perp walk, rather than allowing him to self-surrender. He previously told ESPN that Rozier met with NBA and FBI officials in 2023 and was told that an initial investigation determined he did nothing wrong, the sports network reported.<\/p>\n

A message seeking comment was left Thursday morning with Billups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 As legalized sports betting expands, recent polling suggests that Americans have become increasingly critical of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":327332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[3881,162666,1369,57,210,162695,517,3120,80,3133,62,8930,99907,67,132,68,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-327331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ap-top-news","9":"tag-chauncey-billups","10":"tag-college-sports","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-jim-trusty","14":"tag-mental-health","15":"tag-miami-heat","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-sports-betting","20":"tag-terry-rozier","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115425372159999229","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}