Poll finds support in N.J. for defying federal ban on sports betting

A new poll finds there is some voter support for allowing sports betting at New Jersey’s casinos and racetracks.

Fairleigh Dickinson University’s latest PublicMind poll shows 45 percent of adults want the Garden State to go ahead with sports betting in defiance of a federal ban.

However, 38 percent want the state to wait until the ban is repealed by Congress.

Poll director Krista Jenkins says men who are involved in office pools and people who have been to a casino in the past 12 months are most likely to be proponents of sports betting.

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“There’s a handful of states currently who are allowed to engage in legalized sports betting,” Jenkins said. “New Jersey is not one of them, and it looks as if New Jerseyans are cautiously supportive of moving forward without waiting for Congressional approval.”

The NCAA and four major professional sports leagues have filed a lawsuit to block the Christie administration from going ahead with sports betting. They claim it would create the suspicion that game scores may be influenced by factors other than honest athletic competition.

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