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Man on phone in front of burning money
More than half of Gen Z investors surveyed by Betterment say they redirected money that was supposed to be invested into sports betting during the past year. The stock market has apparently gained a new competitor for young people’s spare cash, and it is a four-leg parlay involving a Tuesday night basketball game.
Betterment’s 2026 survey found 52% of Gen Z respondents moved investing money into sports betting, while 26% said wagering is a deliberate part of their long-term financial strategy. Somewhere, Warren Buffett just felt a disturbance in the force.
Gen Z Is Starting To Treat The Sportsbook Like A Brokerage Account
Betterment surveyed 1,000 U.S. retail investors across Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers between March 27 and April 3. Everyone surveyed held at least one qualifying financial investment, so these were not people who had never opened a brokerage app and confused a moneyline with a mutual fund.
They already invest.
Some are simply taking money intended for that investing and moving it somewhere with a much louder deposit-match promotion.
The generational gap is enormous. Betterment found that 26% of Gen Z treats sports betting as part of a long-term strategy, compared with 14% of Millennials, 6% of Gen X and only 1% of Baby Boomers.
That means roughly one-quarter of the youngest investors surveyed are looking at an activity built around point spreads and saying, yes, this belongs somewhere near the retirement plan.
Betterment CEO Sarah Levy was not particularly enthusiastic about that development.
“When a prediction market or sportsbook starts to feel like a retirement strategy, we have a problem,” Levy said.
Hard to argue with that one.
A sportsbook is designed to make money for the sportsbook. Traditional long-term investing is built around owning assets that can appreciate and compound over years. One comes with quarterly earnings reports. The other comes with your friend texting “LOCK” followed by six fire emojis.
Sportsbooks Are Competing For The Same Dollars As Investing Apps
The bigger story is how completely the lines between investing, trading and gambling have blurred on a phone screen.
Stocks can be bought in seconds. Sports bets can be placed in seconds. Prediction-market contracts can be traded in seconds. All three products live behind colorful apps with live numbers moving up and down while users convince themselves the next click is the smart one.
Betterment’s survey also found 60% of Gen Z uses social media for financial news, up from 45% in 2024, while 48% said AI has influenced a financial decision. Young investors have more information, more products and more ways to move money instantly than any generation before them.
That convenience is great when the money is going into an index fund.
It gets a little stranger when the retirement contribution is suddenly riding on whether the Chiefs cover.
This does not mean 52% of all Gen Z Americans are draining retirement accounts to gamble. The survey covered Gen Z retail investors, and Betterment did not specify how much money respondents redirected.
Still, the behavior itself is hard to ignore.
Sportsbooks used to compete with bars, casinos and other entertainment for discretionary cash.
Now they are apparently competing with the brokerage account.
Your 401(k) cannot hit a buzzer-beater.
It also cannot blow a 12-point lead in the fourth quarter.