U.S. adults were less likely to say they gambled over the past year than they were a decade ago, with 45% reporting taking part in at least one of 13 gambling activities, down from 64% 10 years earlier. The steepest drops were in buying state lottery tickets, visiting casinos in person and joining office pools.
In Gallup’s poll, the decline came alongside a softer view of gambling itself. The share calling it “morally acceptable” fell from 67% in 2016 to 57% earlier this year.
The poll combined telephone interviews with 2,201 adults from June 1 to July 19 and a parallel web survey of 2,043 Gallup Panel members from June 1 to 15. The web results were higher across the board, with 53% saying they had gambled in the past year versus 45% by phone, and some people may be less willing to tell an interviewer that they gamble.
The topline showed 31% bought a state lottery ticket, 14% gambled in person at a casino, 7% bet on a professional sports event, 7% took part in an office pool, 5% played video poker, 4% gambled on the internet, 4% played fantasy sports for money and 3% played bingo for money. Internet gambling was the only form measured that had not declined over time. Office pools had fallen from 15% in the early 2000s to 7% now, and video poker from as high as 20% in 1999 to 5%.
State lotteries have long been the most common form of gambling in the survey’s series, with consistent majorities saying they played one between 1989 and 1999 before the share eased into the high-40% range from 2003 to 2016 and then to 31% now. Casino gambling rose from 20% when the survey first asked in 1989 to 30% in 2003 before sliding to 14%, while betting on college and professional sports has been relatively flat since 2003.
In a Pew Research Center survey, 22% of adults had bet money on sports in the past year, while 43% said legal sports betting was bad for society and 40% said it was bad for sports. In the phone survey, 3% of adults said they sometimes gamble more than they think they should, 9% said gambling had been a source of problems in their family and 7% of gamblers said they sometimes gamble too much. It is unclear whether the decline reflects a real turn away from gambling, greater reluctance to report it, or both, though rising gambling revenue could also reflect a smaller pool of people gambling more often, higher prices or a shift toward formal, government-sanctioned betting.
