Americans Overwhelmingly Support Legal Wagering

More than three-fourths of online sports bets are now placed through legal, regulated platforms in the U.S., and 85% of Americans say the Supreme Court was right in 2018 to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, according to new research from the American Gaming Association released Tuesday morning.

The research was released five days ahead of the fifth anniversary of the court ruling that legal sports betting should be a states’ rights issue. It also suggests that about half of those betting illegally believe they are betting legally, and that “misleading offshore sites, search engines, and the media” cause that confusion.

“Five years post-PASPA, the AGA and our members continue to support responsibly expanding the legal market while cracking down on predatory illegal operators,” AGA President and CEO Bill Miller said via press release. “The regulated industry and our partners across the entire ecosystem — policymakers, law enforcement, regulators, leagues, media, technology providers, and more — have made significant strides in our collaborative consumer education efforts since 2018, and we will find new ways to enhance consumer protections as the market matures.”

According to the research, 77% of online wagers in the U.S. are now placed through regulated platforms, compared to 44% in 2019, and 77% of adults in legal wagering states support legal betting.

Confidence key to growth

Since PASPA was overturned, 33 states plus the District of Columbia have begun offering legal, live sports betting, while regulators in Kentucky, Maine, and Nebraska are preparing to launch wagering. According to the research, those polled say they choose to wager in legal markets due to confidence that bets will be paid out (71%), trust in account security (68%), and access to responsible gaming information (58%).

Heart + Mind Strategies polled 1,066 U.S. adults aged 21 or older and 1,005 sports bettors between March 14-21 in an online survey. The research reported that consumers continue to move from the illegal market to legal markets — 46% of bettors surveyed who play on the illegal market said they have plans to move into legal jurisdictions in the next year.

Since PASPA was overturned in 2018, Americans have bet more than $220 billion legally on sports, which has resulted in $3 billion in state taxes.

“American adults have always enjoyed betting on sports, and overwhelmingly value the ability to bring their action into a legal market close to home,” Miller said.

The one area in which the research revealed a weakness is consumer awareness, meaning the industry must further educate the general public. According to the polling, 29% of Americans said they were unsure of the legality of wagering in their state and 70% of those who bet mainly on illegal platforms said they believed they were betting with legal books or splitting their bets between legal and black-market sportsbooks.