Gen Z Is Betting Money It Used to Invest

This story will be featured in the upcoming Financial Poise Weekly newsletter.

Some pretty surprising stats came from a recent Betterment survey. According to Zijia Song and Michelle Amponsah from Bloomberg:

• 26% of Gen Z investors consider sports betting an ongoing part of their financial plans. Compare that to 14% of millennials, 6% of Gen X, and just 1% of baby boomers.
• More than half of young investors have moved money earmarked for investments into sports betting, with 14% doing so multiple times a month.

These are signs that betting is increasingly competing directly with investing.

• The trend comes as legal sports betting has grown into an almost $17 billion industry, while prediction markets are also booming. Robinhood’s prediction-market business, launched in 2025, has become the fastest-growing unit in the company’s history.
• Rising living costs and unaffordable housing are also playing a part here. With traditional paths to building wealth feeling increasingly out of reach, research suggests some younger adults are turning to sports betting, prediction markets, and crypto in hopes of reaching their financial goals faster.

Our take? Ever seen the movie Idiocracy? We might be living it. If you or someone you care about has fallen victim to the should-be criminals who are responsible for the mass marketing that aims to trick people into believing that gambling is a reasonable alternative to investing, we hope you get better soon. For more on where investing ends and gambling begins, read Speculation Nation: Who Ya Gonna Call — Your Broker Or Your Bookie?