Gen Z Is Using Sports Gambling As An "Investment" Strategy. Uh Oh.
The rise of online gambling is a scourge, and one we desperately cannot afford.
On Wednesday, Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas shared a graphic showing that 52 percent of American Gen Z investors had shifted investment funds to sports betting at least once in the last year.
A quarter of Gen Z, Balchunas writes, “treat sports betting as a deliberate part of their long-term financial plan.” In contrast, 15 percent of millennials are treating betting as an investment,6 percent of Gen Xers, and 1 percent of Boomers.
Overall, 24 percent of American investors have used investment funds for sports betting in the last year, while 12 percent rely on it as part of their wealth-building strategy.
Uh oh.
The growth of legal online gambling and so-called “prediction market” sites — which, I’ve argued, are “bookies with venture capital funding — have reduced the friction that in the past limited who gambled and how often. Before the internet, you’d typically have to make contact with a human in real time to gamble. You’d be stuck visiting a casino, buying a lottery ticket from a retail location, or calling a bookie (a person you knew, one way or another). Gambling took at least a modicum of effort and exposure to the world.
You couldn’t hide behind a screen at a distance if you were going to place a sports bet or roll the dice. You couldn’t type in a credit card number and click a few buttons. You couldn’t react to every shot, injury, or second on the clock. You couldn’t instantly indulge every impulse you might have to take a risk in the heat of the moment. You didn’t hold a slot machine, poker table, and sportsbook in your hand 24/7/365.
