Many states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, and more are becoming receptive to legalizing marijuana for recreational use too. So far only Washington and Colorado have legalized marijuana for regulated recreational use.
While legalizing marijuana is a hot topic of debate, so is the legalization of online gambling.
In 2011 a 1961 law that regulated gambling, was amended to allow individual states to regulate their own online gambling. So far Delaware, New Jersey and Nevada have legalized online gambling, which is now producing millions of dollars in revenue from gambling taxes. This has many other states taking notice and considering allowing online gambling too.
At least 10 other states, such as Pennsylvania, California, and Illinois, are all considering legalizing online gambling. However, in an April 2014 survey by Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind of 1,151 citizens over the age of 18, 50% of Americans surveyed support legalizing marijuana, but only 27% support legalizing online gambling.
While public support of the legalization is low, revenues from the states that have legalized it beg to differ. The low number of support may be due in part to a lack of full understanding as to how online gambling is regulated and how states can ensure that users are truly within their state. In fact, 65% of respondents who do not support online gambling do not follow its advances while 85% of those surveyed do pay attention to advances in the legalization of marijuana.
Legalizing marijuana and online gambling clearly do not go hand in hand, but the support each are given are thought provoking when compared side by side.
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