Poll Finds Californians In Favor of Sports Betting

Hot off the presses, a poll by the Field Research Corporation found that by a wide margin, Californians were in favor of legalizing sports betting and by a much smaller margin were in favor of legalizing online poker.  This poll was likely commissioned as there are a couple of bills working their way through the legislative process to legalize these exact things.  The sports betting bill is much further along in the process, having passed the Senate and is now in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, already having passed the Assembly Government Organization Committee.  A recent post on the sports betting bill can be found here.

The poll results were clear.  Any way you cut the population, a majority favored legalizing sports betting.  Republicans, Democrats, Independents, every age group and every geographic location is in favor.  Here is a snippet of the overall results:

Group / Favor / Oppose / No Opinion

Republicans  49/45/6
Democrats    64/31/5
Other            58/31/11

Male             61/34/5
Female         54/37/9

18-39            70/24/6
40-64            53/39/8
65 +              48/45/7

All                58/35/7

This is huge.  For any politician putting his/her finger in the wind, this makes no doubt about the will of the people of California - GIVE THEM SPORTS BETTING!  Oh, and by the way, the question was worded to ask if the person was in favor of sports betting AND having the state tax its proceeds.  So, not just sports betting, but sports betting and taxing it.  I would be shocked if the sports betting bill did not pass and get signed into law, setting up California to join New Jersey in a showdown with the unconstitutional federal PASPA law.  That being said, there are a couple of bills in Congress that would ease the PASPA restrictions, so that states could add sports betting in the next few years if they desired.

The results for legalizing online poker weren't quite as decisive, with a slight overall majority in favor.  The results for sports betting were far more positive - again, a majority of every demographic breakdown in favor.

The details on the poll results can be found here.