Rasmussen Reports on Online Gambling

[Rollo]

Here is an informative assortment of poll numbers from Rasmussen Reports. For those of you not familiar, Rasmussen Reports is one of the US's premier polling outfits, up there with Gallup. This is the best scientific analysis of where Americans stand on online gambling I've found.

Rasmussen Reports on Online Gambling

Some highlights:

"Fifty-two percent (52%) of respondents to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey on Internet gambling believe this emerging betting medium should be more strictly regulated than other forms of gambling. Twenty-nine percent (29%) disagree."

"Forty-seven percent (47%) of Republicans say online gambling should be illegal and 33% say it should not. Democrats are evenly divided with 41% on each side of the issue."

"Only 3% of those surveyed say they’ve gambled on the Internet; 96% have not."

I guess the conclusion is that the US is very divided on the issue but leans toward outlawing it.

He missed independents which I'd guess are more libertarian about it, but very interesting numbers. This, to me at least, suggests that if and when the Democrats take the Congress, they would be unlikely to take a pro-online gambling stance (assuming these numbers reamain the same).

[jetset]

I guess it's a question of interpretation:

To me, the paragraph: "Fifty-two percent (52%) of respondents to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey on Internet gambling believe this emerging betting medium should be more strictly regulated " implies a desire to see control and regulation in an unregulated industry and not necessarily a vote for banning.

That hard-ass Republican opinion is hard to argue with, however.

"Only 3% of those surveyed say they’ve gambled on the Internet; 96% have not."

Suggests to me that many of these respondents are lacking in information on online gambling and are possibly influenced by the sound-byte, unsubstantiated claims on its evils so favoured by politicians and much of the mainstream media who love a negative gambling story.

That should perhaps indicate that there's in general more public education on this topic to be done by the industry.

[Rollo]

I think "regulated" here was poor wording for the questionaire. I think many respondents understood 'controled" rather than "legalized and regulated" as we understand it beucase on the direct question of legalization, the stats are pretty telling: 15% more Republicsn think it should be illegal than legal and surprisingly, Democrats are evenly split on the issue.

Putting my political science hat on, this means taking a strong stand in favor of legalized online gambling would do more political harm than good, particularly becuase only 3% of the population does it so there is no powerful "online gambling vote" base to offset the the plurality that favor making it illegal.

Unfortnately, I asked some Republicans here on this board whether they would ditch the GOP over the issue and it seemed a pretty unanimous no way. I guess the question would be ditch the GOP for whom, I was thinking the Democrats would be slightly in favor but it seems not.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news Beleive me, I wish it were otherwise, I spent a lot of time and money making my gambling site and it was earning a couple k a month with some nice spikes a couple times a year. Now.... nada.

[lots0]

Give it a little more time, let the information flow to the public, then look at the results of polls like this.

The information about this new 'law' is just getting to the public at large, the GOP has been very active in trying to keep this new law quiet, once people know about the issue... Freedom to do what you want with your money and time, freedom from the government going through EVERY financial trasaction you make with a fine tooth comb, I think the results of these polls will be quite different.