Texas ranked among most dangerous states for online dating: survey

HOUSTON – Meeting someone new is almost always a scary experience and a new report shows how frightening online dating is in Texas.

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Researchers at Privacyjournal.net looked at several key factors across 100 U.S. states - including romance scam reports, fraud, identity theft, registered sex offenders, STI incidents, and of course, violent crime rates.

The study found Texas was among the top 10 most dangerous states for online dating, between Arkansas and Louisiana.

Nevada, however, was named the most dangerous. The report says it’s “primarily due to the prevalence of scams, using a dating app in the Silver State is more of a gamble than anything you can do at Caesar’s Palace.”

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Meanwhile, Vermont was named the safest state for online dating. However, the report admits that is arguably because there aren’t that many residents living in Vermont in the first place - and those that do live there, probably aren’t on dating apps.

“Although Vermont is certainly lovely, its high scores here may have more to do with how its population is distributed,” the report claims. “Its largest city, Burlington, is home to fewer than 45,000 people, lowering the rates of crimes that only occur in dense population centers. Residents also skew older, and senior citizens are less likely to date online.”

To read the full report and how other states ranked in comparison, click here.


About the Author

Historian, educator, writer, expert on "The Simpsons," amateur photographer, essayist, film & tv reviewer and race/religious identity scholar. Joined KPRC 2 in Spring 2024 but has been featured in various online newspapers and in the Journal of South Texas' Fall 2019 issue.

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