Poll Results Say That N J Voters Support Increased For Online Gambling
Just weeks after Governor Chris Christie had signed a law that legalized Online Gambling, a poll was taken and released, that said votors were ‘warming up’ to this states newest type of wagering, this is in contrast to a survey done two years ago where people polled showed two thirds of them questioned were opposed.
The poll was conducted by the Farleigh Dickinson University and thre PublicMind poll found that 46% of the registered voters in the state of New Jersey had opposed decision by the state last month for allowing online wagering, and 41% supported it.
The PublicMind polls has shown that online gambling support has increased over recent years. In a poll taken May last year showed that 58% opposed and only 31% supported it. February 2011, 67% opposed and 26% supported.
The Director of PublicMind Poll, Krista Jenkins, said that the votors were either accepting the inevitable or that they have acquired new knowledge that has changed their thinking, possibly due to the heightened coverage of new legislations.
The poll also revealed that the situation in New Jersey’s entanglement in the lawsuit of wagering in professional and the NCAA spots, a majority of the votors polled supported the state’s rights to be able to regulate wagering, as opposed to regulation by the federal government.
At the beginning of the month a federal judge had blocked attempts by New Jersey to allow betting at race tracks and sports betting at Atlantic City casinos. The federal judge rejected the state’s contention that the federal law had allowed betting in only 4 states and that it violated the 10th Amendment to force the state to ban betting.
The findings of the poll revealed that although most of the people surveyed did not know much about the case, almost 80% stated that the choice for regulation of gambling should rest with the state for overall gambling and sports betting.
Ms. Jenkins said that the voters view this as an typical example of ‘federal overreach’ into the sovereignty of the state. She said it’s was a very rare ‘moment of agreement’ that the federal government shouldn’t be delving into the matter and to let New Jersey to have ‘its spoils’.
The poll questioned 707 of the registered votors on telephone during March 4th through to March 10th with a margin of error of three point seven percentage points.
