Poll: Gambling More Acceptable than Wearing Fur, Death Penalty

A recent Gallup poll on morally acceptable activities ranks gambling above a number of other controversial issues such as the death penalty, wearing fur clothing and pornography.

67 percent of Americans polled said that they consider gambling morally acceptable, which ranked the fourth highest out of 19 activities that voters were polled on.

Birth control ranked as the most-acceptable issue, with 89 percent of voters approving it. Divorce (72 percent) and sex between an unmarried man and woman (67 percent) ranked a distant second and third on the morality list.

Once considered much more immoral, gambling has gained acceptance over the years as casinos continue spreading across the United States. Online casinos and sportsbooks have also helped make gaming a more-acceptable part of American culture.

It’s difficult to say where gambling would have ranked in such a poll 20 or 30 years ago. But what’s clear is that Americans think that it’s okay to gamble above having gay or lesbian relations (60 percent), the death penalty (59 percent), buying/wearing fur clothing (57 percent), medical testing on animals (53 percent), abortion (43 percent), sex between teenagers (37 percent), pornography (34 percent) and polygamy (14 percent).

If you’d like to see the entire list and rankings, you can check out the Gallup poll here.

Gallup has been doing this morality poll for 15 years. And during this time, the research group has noticed certain issues grow in being morally acceptable since 2001, including gay or lesbian relations, having a baby outside marriage, and sex between unmarried partners.

Issues that have made little to no progress since the turn of the millennium include abortion, cloning animals and wearing fur.

As for gambling, this falls into Gallup’s “Largely Acceptable” category based on the percentage of favorable votes. The only activity to achieve the “Highly Acceptable” billing was birth control.

Gallup also found that opinions on morally acceptable activities changed based on political denominations. Regarding gambling, 74 percent of Democrats approve the activity while only 63 percent of Republicans do. The largest division between party lines can be seen with gay or lesbian relations, where 75 percent of Democrats approve and only 44 percent of Republicans do.

As for how Gallup conducted their poll, they carried out telephone (mobile phone and landline) interviews with 1,025 random adults, aged 18 or older, in all 50 U.S. states.