Americans Torn About Sports Betting

Highly addictive or harmless fun? Americans are torn about the pros and cons of sports betting, as seen in results from the Statista Consumer Insights survey. In a country where betting is highly regulated, a high share of respondents – 24 percent – said they didn’t agree with neither the positive nor the negative aspects of the issue.

Most respondents, however, did have an opinion: 29 percent said they thought sports betting was highly addictive, closely followed by 28 percent who said that the activity was “fun”. Similarly, 24 percent said they considered sports betting to be “thrilling”, while 19 percent said discussion about the risks of betting were lacking. 14 percent came out in favor of a ban on sports betting.

Out of the 1,000+ people surveyed, 30 percent had participated in sports betting in the past 12 months. Football was the most popular sport to place a bet on. 51 percent of those who had betted placed money on a football match. 38 percent had betted on basketball at least once in the past year, followed by baseball (25 percent), soccer (25 percent), boxing (18 percent) and tennis (11 percent).