A growing number of young Americans are treating sports betting and prediction markets as part of their financial plans, according to a Betterment survey cited by Bloomberg.[1][4]
The personal finance platform surveyed 1,000 U.S. individual investors and found that about 26% of Gen Z investors, born between 1997 and 2007, said they use sports betting as part of their financial planning.[1][4] That compares with 14% of millennials, 6% of Gen X and just 1% of baby boomers, born before 1965.[1]
More than half of Gen Z investors said they had diverted money they intended to use for investing into sports betting over the past year, and 14% said they were putting money into sports betting at least once a month.[6] Betterment Chief Executive Sarah Levy said that if prediction markets or sports betting start to feel like a retirement strategy, “we have a problem,” adding that the products are designed to make people chase “the next big thing” rather than prepare for the next decade.[6]
The trend comes as sports betting has grown into a $17 billion industry in the U.S. over the past few years, while prediction markets have also expanded rapidly.[1][4] Bloomberg said higher living costs and housing prices are pushing some younger investors toward speculative bets in place of traditional investing.[1]
