Sportsbooks Are Winning Gen Z’s Investment Dollars. More Than Half Have Redirected Money Meant for Their Portfolios.

More than half of Gen Z investors have moved money they had intended to invest into sports betting, a striking sign of how online gambling is beginning to compete with traditional wealth-building among younger Americans.

The finding comes from Betterment's 2026 Retail Investor Survey, which found that 52% of Gen Z investors, defined in the study as those born between 1997 and 2007, have redirected money earmarked for investments toward sports bets.

The Betterment survey, released in August and based on responses from 1,000 U.S. investors, also found that about a quarter of Gen Z investors consider sports betting part of their long-term financial strategy.

A separate Siena Research Institute poll found that 27% of Americans now have an active online sportsbook account. Among men between 18 and 49, that figure jumps to 52%. The share of all Americans with active accounts has climbed steadily from 19% in 2024 and 22% in 2025.

"The concern isn't that young adults are enjoying sports or occasionally making a bet. The concern is when gambling starts competing with money that was intended for long-term wealth building, and when entertainment starts masquerading as an investment strategy," Andrew Lendnal, head of financial wellness at Wealthspire, told CNBC.

Sportsbooks build an advantage, commonly known as the "vig," into their odds. On a wager with an approximately 50-50 outcome, a bettor might have to risk $110 to win $100. That means simply winning half of those bets is not enough to break even over time.

Investing, meanwhile, offers the potential to benefit from decades of compounding. Research from Arizona State University professor Hendrik Bessembinder puts the stock market's annual weighted return over the past century at roughly 10%. At that rate, $10,000 left invested for 40 years could theoretically grow to more than $452,000.

Sports betting offers the possibility of doubling money in hours, which the stock market does not. That immediate payoff helps explain its appeal to younger investors accustomed to financial information, trading platforms and gambling apps being available on the same smartphone.

A 2026 Federal Reserve Bank of New York study found that mobile sports betting legalization increased sportsbook spending roughly tenfold and was associated with deterioration in some measures of consumer credit.

Overall delinquency increased by 0.3 percentage points, while among consumers under 40, auto-loan delinquency increased by half a percentage point and credit-card delinquency by one percentage point.

Siena's found that 60% of online bettors said they had "chased" a bet by wagering more in hopes of recovering previous losses, up from 52% in 2025. 42% said they had felt they bet more than they should, while 43% reported feeling bad or ashamed after losing.