Gen Z Investors Are Moving Money From Stocks Into Sports Betting, Betterment Survey Finds

More than a quarter of Gen Z investors now say sports betting is a deliberate part of their long-term financial strategy, according to a new survey from personal finance platform Betterment. The data, first reported by Bloomberg, shows that young Americans are increasingly treating wagers on games the same way older generations treat stock picks — as a calculated piece of how they plan to build wealth.

The survey polled 1,000 U.S. retail investors across four generations between March 27 and April 3, and every respondent held at least one qualifying financial investment. That detail matters: this isn’t a sample of casual bettors who stumbled into a parlay. These are people who already have skin in the market and are choosing to divert some of that discretionary money toward sportsbooks and prediction markets instead.

The Generational Gap Is Stark

About 26% of Gen Z investors, those born between 1997 and 2007, told Betterment they treat sports betting as an ongoing component of their financial plans. Compare that to 14% of millennials, 6% of Gen X, and just 1% of baby boomers, and the trend line looks less like a quirky habit and more like a structural shift in how the youngest generation of investors views risk.

The numbers get more striking when you look at behavior rather than intent. More than half of Gen Z investors said they had redirected money originally earmarked for investing into sports betting over the past year, and 14% said they do it multiple times a month. Only about one-third of Gen Z respondents said they don’t participate in sports betting at all, compared with 63% of investors across all four generations combined.

Legal Expansion Meets a New Investing Mindset

The rapid legalization of sports betting across the country, paired with the rise of prediction markets, has given young adults an outlet that didn’t exist for previous generations at the same age. Betterment’s findings suggest that outlet is now competing directly with retirement accounts and brokerage portfolios for the same discretionary dollars, particularly among a generation that came of age watching legal sportsbooks and fantasy apps become as normalized as a 401(k) match.

That competition for wallet share is showing up across the industry, from DFS apps to traditional sportsbooks, as operators lean into products built around frequent, small-stakes engagement rather than the occasional big-game wager. Younger bettors who grew up with mobile-first betting apps are also the demographic most comfortable moving between game odds, player props, and futures markets in the same way they’d rebalance a portfolio.

What It Means Going Forward

Betterment’s survey doesn’t suggest Gen Z is abandoning traditional investing altogether, but it does point to a blending of the two worlds that regulators, advisors, and sportsbooks alike will need to reckon with. As legal sports betting continues to expand into new states and prediction markets gain more mainstream attention, the line between “investment” and “wager” is likely to keep blurring for the generation that grew up with both in easy reach on the same smartphone.