For Immediate Release
Contact:
Dan Cassino
Executive Director, FDU Poll
973.896.7072/ dcassino@fdu.edu
Voters Oppose Expansion of NJ Casinos, Smoking Bans
Rare bipartisan accord on issues surrounding Atlantic City
Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, November 10, 2022 – There isn’t much that Republicans and Democrats in New Jersey can agree on, but across party lines, New Jersey opposes the expansions of casinos outside of Atlantic City and opposes a ban on smoking in those casinos. According to the latest results from the FDU Poll, while the environment around these issues has changed dramatically, there has been little movement in public opinion on these issues in more than a decade.
Just 37 percent of New Jersey residents say that they favor expanding casino gambling outside of Atlantic City, with a bare majority, 51 percent, saying that they oppose such an expansion. Opposition to casino expansion may be one of the few remaining bipartisan issues in the state: 50 percent of Democrats oppose it, along with 54 percent of Republicans and 53 percent of independents. Any expansion of casinos would require a vote on a constitutional amendment in the state; in 2016, such an amendment failed, 77 to 23.
“Competition from new casinos opening soon in New York City and the endless search for new sources of revenue mean that there’s a lot of pressure to open new casinos in Jersey,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at FDU, and the Executive Director of the Poll. “But if the state wants those casinos, they’re going to have to change a lot of minds.”
There’s also little sign that attitudes on the issue are changing. When the FDU Poll asked the same question to New Jersey residents in 2016, 50 percent opposed it, and 37 percent supported it: no different than the numbers this year. As far back as 2014, opposition was at 50 percent, with 42 percent opposing. However, support is a bit higher than it was in 2009, when just 24 percent said that they favored expansion.
“Views of casino expansion in New Jersey have been crystallized for years,” said Cassino. “None of the arguments that have been made in favor of expansion have made any dent.”
Older residents, who may remember the initial wave of casinos opening in Atlantic City in 1978, are the most skeptical about opening casinos elsewhere in the state. Only 25 percent of residents 65 and older favor casino expansion, with 65 percent saying that they oppose it. By way of contrast, 47 percent of residents 31 to 44 favor expansion – the only age group where supporters outnumber opponents.
In recent days, Atlantic City casinos have also been grappling with the issue of smoking on the gaming floors. Smoking was banned in most indoors areas in New Jersey in 2006, but exceptions were made for casinos, cigar bars and a few other types of businesses, and today Atlantic City casinos allow smoking in about one-quarter of their gaming areas. The state legislature has been considering a bill to ban smoking in casinos altogether, but casinos have argued that it would reduce their business, which has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels, and lead to layoffs.
Most New Jersey residents (57 percent) support the status quo on smoking in casinos, in which smoking is allowed only in certain designated areas. Twenty-nine percent support a complete ban on smoking in casinos, and 12 percent say that smoking should be allowed anywhere in a casino. These figures are not much changed from when the question was asked in 13 years ago, in 2009: then, 35 percent of New Jersey residents said that it should be banned entirely, with 47 percent saying that it should be limited to certain areas.
“This is a balancing act,” said Cassino. “Smoking bans protect workers from secondhand smoke, but no one wants to risk hurting the casino’s bottom lines and having to bail out Atlantic City. Again.”
Support for a ban on smoking in casinos is highest among older voters (42 percent among those 65 and older), and lowest among young voters (just 14 percent). More educated voters – those with a college degree – are more likely to support a ban (35 percent) than those without a four-year degree (24 percent). As with casino expansion, though, partisanship has no real impact on views of smoking in casinos: Democrats, Republicans and independents are all about equally likely to support a ban.
Methodology
The survey was conducted between October 24 and November 1, 2022, using a certified list of adult New Jersey residents carried out by Ironwood Insights. Respondents were randomly chosen from the list, and contacted via either live caller telephone interviews, or text-to-web surveys sent to cellular phones, resulting in an overall sample of 801 respondents. 174 of the surveys were carried out via live caller telephone interviews on both cell phones (70%) and landlines (30%), and the remainder (627) were done on a web platform via weblinks sent via SMS to cell phones. Surveys were conducted only in English.
The data were weighted to be representative of the population of adult NJ residents, as of the 2020 US Census. The weights used, like all weights, balance the demographic characteristics of the sample to match known population parameters. The weighted results used here are balanced to match parameters for sex, age, education and race/ethnicity.
SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicate the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, calculated design effects are approximately 1.4.
All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 801 registered voters is +/-3.5 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-4.9 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported.
This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects. While such errors are known to exist, they are often unquantifiable within a particular survey, and all efforts, such as randomization and extensive pre-testing of items, have been used to minimize them.
Weighted Telephone Sample Characteristics
801 New Jersey Residents
Figures are weighted to overall voter characteristics from the 2020 US Census. Respondents who refused to answer a demographic item are not included.
Man
42% N = 341
Woman
55% N = 436
Some Other Way
3% N = 22
18-30
21% N = 162
31-44
25% N = 207
45-64
32% N = 261
65+
19% N = 154
Democrat (with leaners)
50% N = 354
Independent
17% N = 118
Republican (with leaners)
33% N = 240
White
53% N = 400
Black
14% N = 104
Hispanic/Latino/a
24% N = 178
Asian
7% N = 55
Other/Multi-racial
2% N = 16
No college degree
55% N = 447
College degree or more
45% N = 350
Question Wording and Order
NJ1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Phil Murphy is handling his job as governor?
- Approve
- Disapprove
- Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]
- Refused [Vol]
NJ2. Right now, casino gambling in New Jersey is limited to Atlantic City. Do you favor or oppose [rotate] expanding casino gambling to other areas in the state?
- Favor
- Oppose
- [DK /REF]
NJ3. Do you think smoking should be banned entirely in Atlantic City casinos, or just limited to certain areas, or allowed anywhere?
- Banned Entirely
- Limited to Certain Areas
- Allowed Anywhere
- [Don’t Know/Refused]
NJ4 Held for future release
Following questions released in earlier reports
Release Tables
|
Right now, casino gambling in New Jersey is limited to Atlantic City. Do you favor or oppose expanding casino gambling to other areas in the state? |
||||
|
|
All |
Dem |
Indp |
Rep |
|
Favor |
37% |
35% |
35% |
36% |
|
Oppose |
51% |
50% |
53% |
54% |
|
[Vol] Don’t Know/Refused |
12% |
13% |
12% |
10% |
|
Right now, casino gambling in New Jersey is limited to Atlantic City. Do you favor or oppose expanding casino gambling to other areas in the state? |
|||||
|
|
All |
2016 |
2015 |
2014 |
2009 |
|
Favor |
37% |
37% |
36% |
42% |
24% |
|
Oppose |
51% |
50% |
57% |
50% |
70% |
|
[Vol] Don’t Know/Refused |
12% |
13% |
8% |
8% |
6% |
|
Do you think smoking should be banned entirely in Atlantic City casinos, or just limited to certain areas, or allowed anywhere? |
||||
|
|
All |
Dem |
Indp |
Rep |
|
Banned Entirely |
29% |
31% |
30% |
27% |
|
Limited to Certain Areas |
56% |
55% |
53% |
57% |
|
Allowed Anywhere |
12% |
12% |
14% |
14% |
|
[Vol] Don’t Know/Refused |
3% |
2% |
3% |
2% |
|
Do you think smoking should be banned entirely in Atlantic City casinos, or just limited to certain areas, or allowed anywhere? |
|||
|
|
All |
No College Degree |
College Degree |
|
Banned Entirely |
29% |
24% |
35% |
|
Limited to Certain Areas |
56% |
60% |
53% |
|
Allowed Anywhere |
12% |
15% |
8% |
|
[Vol] Don’t Know/Refused |
3% |
1% |
4% |
|
Do you think smoking should be banned entirely in Atlantic City casinos, or just limited to certain areas, or allowed anywhere? |
|||||
|
|
All |
Under 30 |
31 to 44 |
45 to 64 |
65+ |
|
Banned Entirely |
29% |
14% |
25% |
34% |
42% |
|
Limited to Certain Areas |
56% |
64% |
55% |
56% |
51% |
|
Allowed Anywhere |
12% |
18% |
18% |
9% |
4% |
|
[Vol] Don’t Know/Refused |
3% |
4% |
2% |
1% |
3% |
|
Do you think smoking should be banned entirely in Atlantic City casinos, or just limited to certain areas, or allowed anywhere? |
|||
|
|
All |
Men |
Women |
|
Banned Entirely |
29% |
33% |
27% |
|
Limited to Certain Areas |
56% |
51% |
59% |
|
Allowed Anywhere |
12% |
13% |
12% |
|
[Vol] Don’t Know/Refused |
3% |
3% |
2% |
|
Right now, casino gambling in New Jersey is limited to Atlantic City. Do you favor or oppose expanding casino gambling to other areas in the state? |
|||||
|
|
All |
Under 30 |
31 to 44 |
45 to 64 |
65+ |
|
Favor |
37% |
37% |
47% |
38% |
25% |
|
Oppose |
51% |
50% |
39% |
51% |
65% |
|
[Vol] Don’t Know/Refused |
12% |
13% |
14% |
11% |
10% |