Poll Shows I-Poker Legalization FavorableReason: 65 Percent of Americans Say Online Poker Should Be Allowed |
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A new poll has found the legalization of web poker to be a favorable idea among Americans.
The question Reason.com asked was: “Do you think the government should prohibit people from gambling in online poker games, or should the government allow people to do this?”
The survey was a nationwide telephone poll conducted between Dec. 4-8, and it interviewed 1011 adults on both mobile (506) and landline (505) phones.
Now, online poker legalization efforts exist on both federal and state levels, so the reference to “government” is somewhat broad in the question. It is worth noting that federal initiatives to legalize online poker are widely considered by the industry to be drawing stone-cold dead. In other words, astronomically low chances. Thus, the hope for online poker firms and casinos who want to offer those games lies solely at the state level.
From Reason.com:
“Majorities of all partisans favor allowing Americans to play online poker, but independents who lean Republican were even more likely to favor (75 percent) allowing people to play online poker and Democrats were the least likely to favor (58 percent). Regular Republicans (66 percent), non-partisan Independents (68 percent) and independent-leaning Democrats (65 percent) also favor legalizing online poker.
Lower-income Americans and those with a high school degree or less are most likely to favor banning online gambling (41 percent), but still 56 percent would favor legalization. In comparison, only 21 percent of post-graduates and 31 percent of high income Americans favor the ban, (73 percent and 66 percent favor legalization respectively).
Support for legalized online gambling decline with age; roughly 70 percent Americans under 55 favor legalization compared to 56 percent of those over 55."
It is also worth pointing out that while the federal government doesn’t explicitly “allow people” to play online poker, online poker is running in the United States not only from state sanctioned-sites in Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware, but also still from smaller offshore online poker sites. Online poker will happen in the U.S. regardless of what lawmakers do.
Some of the largest online poker sites in the world — Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker, Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars — were forcefully kicked out of American cyberspace on Black Friday in April 2011. Other sites had left in the years prior, due to the unclear nature of U.S. law.
The aforementioned three each paid a big price for continuing to offer games after the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
Die hard poker fans almost might be a little perplexed by the Reason.com poll question, since it is widely considered that poker is a game of skill and does not constitute gambling.
Reason’s results contradict some of the findings from U.S. casino boss Sheldon Adelson, who is vehemently against online poker. The owner of Las Vegas Sands Corp. commissioned a survey that found in California, Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania there was “overwhelming opposition to web poker.” The average distaste for casino games on the web between the four was a whopping 66 percent, with a margin of error of about four percent.
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