Americans Send Mixed Signals On Online Gambling

The Justice Department recently cracked down on three top online poker websites, but Americans still appear to have more faith in the private sector than in the government when it comes to gambling on the Internet.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 31% of Adults say they are more likely to trust an online gaming site run by a private company rather than a similar site run by a government agency. Twenty-four percent (24%) place more trust in a government-run website. But it's important to note that a plurality (45%) are not sure which they'd trust more. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

However, Americans who gamble online are overwhelmingly more trusting of a privately-run site than non-Internet gamblers.

In August, a solid majority (61%) of all Americans said if an Internet gambling site was approved by the government, they would be less likely to use it.  Thirty-four percent (34%) said in June 2009 that they were less likely to use an Internet gambling site if the government could tax it. 

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The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on April 18-19, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.