Significantly fewer adults in the United States said they’ve gambled in the past year, according to a new survey from Gallup.
Gallup estimated that 45 percent of adults participated in at least one form of gambling in the previous 12 months, down from 64 percent in 2016. The estimates are based on telephone interviews with more than 2,000 participants.
A parallel online survey that Gallup conducted in June returned a higher proportion of gamblers across all forms, leading to an estimate that 53 percent of adults gambled in the past year.
The telephone survey comes as online prediction markets and sports betting websites proliferate, sparking concerns over their advertising or that they might contribute to gambling addiction and consumer debt. A separate Gallup report found that the share of Americans who found gambling morally acceptable fell to a new low of 57 percent.
Gallup said it added prediction markets to this year’s gambling survey.
The survey found that the number of Americans who had purchased a state lottery ticket was down 18 percentage points compared with 2016 — the largest change in any betting activity. There was also a 12-point drop in adults who said they’ve gambled at casinos.
Gallup said it interviewed a random sample of 2,201 adults from early June through mid-July and weighted responses for the estimate. The margin of sampling error was three percentage points.
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