Legalizing Sports Betting : A Winning Wager 3
‣ Majority support holds – and even expands slightly – in response to arguments both for and against legalization . Overall support rises from 55 to 58 percent ; strong support rises from 23 percent to 28 percent . Demographic groups particularly open to positive messaging include seniors (+ 5 net movement ), adults in the South (+ 7 ), non-college women (+ 7 ), liberals (+ 6 ), casino-goers (+ 5 ), and non-white adults (+ 4 ).
Table 1 : Support for Legalization
‣ Arguments in favor of legalization are highly persuasive . Two of the top reasons to legalize sports betting are the revenue it would provide to fund schools , hospitals , and public safety in local communities ( 68 percent of Americans find this statement convincing , including 37 percent who rate it very convincing ) and the fact that allowing sports betting should be up to each individual state to decide rather than the federal government ( 69 percent convincing , including 33 percent very convincing ).
‣ Americans see a number of benefits of legal sports betting . Nearly 2 in 3 believe that local communities will benefit from more tax revenue and job creation ( including 59 percent of non-sports fans ), while 57 percent agree that legalization would make betting on sports safer for regular people .
Leveraging Insights
Initial Test Re-Test
Strongly favor |
23 |
28 |
Somewhat favor |
32 |
30 |
Somewhat oppose |
14 |
13 |
Strongly oppose |
21 |
23 |
Don ’ t know / refused 10 5 Total favor 55 58 Total oppose 35 37
We believe this data has the potential to appeal to numerous audiences . Below , we present some additional important takeaways from this survey .
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Betting is not a fringe activity . Nearly 1 in 5 Americans ( 19 percent ) report having bet on sports in the past year , and the number that actually bet on sports is likely even higher 3 . Even so , nearly half ( 45 percent ) of avid fans report having bet on sports in the past year , as do 25 percent of men , 26 percent of millennials , and 45 percent of those who frequently attend sporting events .
3 We suspect that some respondents who did bet on sports did not admit as much , whether due to social desirability bias or because they forgot or did not realize that they had .
�2017 All Rights Reserved , Greenberg Quinlan Rosner April , 2017