If the latest poll from Ipsos is any indication, the honeymoon phase for legalized gambling in the United States may be coming to an end. According to the results, a clear majority of Americans (56%) now agree that sports betting “lessens the integrity of the game.” That’s up seven points from November 2025 and 19 from 2023.
The poll, conducted from March 20 to 22, surveyed 1,020 U.S. adults and found that, for the first time since Ipsos began tracking the issue, more Americans oppose online or app-based sports betting in their state than support it, 44% to 25%.
Even among self-identified sports fans, more oppose allowing online or app-based sports betting in their state than support it, 47% to 31%.
About half of Americans now say sports betting has a negative impact on bettors (52%), society (50%), college athletes (47%), and professional athletes (46%).
And as watching sports has started to feel like sitting inside a sportsbook, the poll shows that many Americans are fed up, with 46% supporting a federal ban on sports betting advertisements during games.
Based on these results, the industry faces a broad reputational problem as public trust continues to erode.
Americans Are Increasingly Skeptical of Sports Betting
The topline results from Ipsos suggest that the debate over sports betting now goes beyond a debate about consumer choice or entertainment.
Americans are just about evenly divided between those who say people should be able to gamble on sports and spend their money on what they want (50%) and those who say sports betting is wrong because it promotes addictive behavior (47%).
The results show a clear shift from past years, when around three in five Americans supported the view that Americans should be free to gamble as they want.
There’s also been a drop in official sports betting participation among Americans, with just 8% saying they had placed an official bet on a live sporting event online or on an app in 2025. That number is down from 15% in November 2025 and 11% in February 2025.
In-person betting also saw a drop in participation, down from 10% in November 2025 to 4% since the beginning of 2026.
However, 3% of Americans said they had bought a sports event contract through a prediction market this year, so it’s possible that this new form of wagering has had an impact on the numbers reported for traditional sports betting.
A String of Recent Polls Has Found Similar Concerns
The Ipsos poll fits into a larger pattern of a credibility gap emerging across several major studies. In the past year, several scandals across professional sports leagues in the U.S. have left the public questioning the impact of betting on the fairness of the competitions they watch.
In an interview with CasinoBeats, sports integrity expert Rodrigo Arias Grillo explained that when fans lose trust in a sport, the results can be catastrophic. He warned that:
If stakeholders start to believe competitions are corrupted, it crushes the soul of any sports association.
Arias Grillo pointed to Italy’s 2006 Calciopoli scandal as an example of what can happen when fans lose trust in a league. After match manipulation involving club officials and referees came to light, Italian soccer’s reputation took a major hit.
While no sports league in the U.S. has reached the level of distrust seen in the Calciopoli scandal in Italy, polling over the last year shows that the NBA, MLB, NCAA, and other leagues would be wise to pay attention to fan sentiment on these matters.
Several polls have shown that trust in athletic competitions is declining because of sports betting:
- NBC News Decision Desk: released in December 2025, this poll found that 70% of Americans somewhat or strongly agreed that betting lessens game integrity.
- YouGov: released in early November, this survey reported that 65% of the public believes athletes sometimes or often alter their performance to benefit bettors.
- Sacred Heart University: released in mid-November, this poll showed that 79.1% of sports bettors lost confidence in the NBA following recent investigations.
The fact that these polls continue to produce similar results suggests that Americans are dealing with more than scandal fatigue; more and more, it’s looking like professional sports leagues in the U.S. have a credibility problem.
And as Arias Grillo said, once suspicion becomes widespread, rebuilding trust among fans and stakeholders becomes much harder.
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If the latest poll from Ipsos is any indication, the honeymoon phase for legalized gambling in the United States may be coming to an end. According to the results, a clear majority of Americans (56%) now agree that sports betting “lessens the integrity of the game.” That’s up seven points from November 2025 and 19
The post New Ipsos Poll Finds Americans Becoming More Wary of Sports Betting appeared first on CasinoBeats.