A new report has revealed that about 20% of adults in America have bet on sports in the past twelve months. But that doesn’t mean that all those bets have been legal, according to the Pew Research Center located in Washington, DC.
The report was compiled from a survey of over 6,000 adults in the US, and finds that in addition ta making legal bets online and through a mobile sports betting app, people were still visiting casinos and making the occasional friendly wager with family and friends. That could include things such as a workplace betting pool and fantasy sports leagues.
The survey was also able to determine that men are more likely to bet on sports than women, which isn’t necessarily too surprising. But it was a bit of s surprise to learn that adults over the age of 50 were more likely to gamble on a sporting event than those under 50.
Additionally, there were no significant differences in for betting between educational level, household income, or political affiliation. What was interesting, however, was that only 56% of respondents said that they had heard about the regulation of the sports betting industry. A full 44% revealed that they had heard nothing at all about the legal changes.
Of course, one could wonder how the awareness gambling regulation could skew the statistics when it comes to the percentage of people who bet on sports. If nearly half of those surveyed where not aware that they could legally place wagers on games, then the percentage of those placing legal bets could eventually be much higher.