Poll: Nearly Half In US Support Legalized Sports Betting

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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - A new poll finds nearly half of Americans approve of legalized sports betting -- something that's permitted in only four states.

The Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll released Wednesday finds 48 percent support changing federal law to make sports betting legal throughout the country; 39 percent are opposed.

The poll comes as New Jersey opens another front in its eight-year war on a federal law restricting sports betting to those states that met a 1991 deadline: Nevada, Oregon, Montana and Delaware.

New lawmakers have come up with another potential way around the ban, and the state's horse racing industry wants the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the matter once and for all.

The telephone poll of 1,019 adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

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