Sports betting has grown roughly 40-fold over the past seven years, from $430 million in wagered volume in 2018 to an estimated $17 billion in 2025, and more than a quarter of Gen Z now say they consider high-risk assets — sports betting, prediction markets and crypto among them — better investments than traditional options, according to data circulated by market-commentary account Bull Theory.
The trend extends beyond sports-specific wagers into broader prediction markets. Combined volume on Polymarket and Kalshi, the two dominant U.S. platforms, has already topped $130 billion in 2026, up sharply from roughly $50 billion for all of last year, with sports the single most heavily traded category on both venues.
The Numbers Behind the Shift
Separate survey data puts the scale of Gen Z’s interest in concrete terms: roughly 32% of Gen Z respondents say they have invested in or are considering investing in sports betting or prediction markets, and awareness of Polymarket specifically runs at 17% among Gen Z and Millennials, versus just 4% among Gen X and older cohorts. That awareness gap suggests the shift is concentrated almost entirely in younger demographics rather than spreading evenly across the investing population.
A Risky Bet for Most Participants
The enthusiasm comes with a significant catch. On Polymarket alone, more than 100,000 accounts have lost at least $1,000, more than double the number of accounts that have won an equivalent amount — a reminder that, unlike a diversified ETF position, prediction-market wagers are typically structured as binary, zero-sum outcomes rather than growth-oriented investments.
Related: Gen Z Traders Lean Into ETFs, Skip Leverage, Binance Data Shows
The pattern sits in some tension with other recent data on how Gen Z invests in traditional markets, where separate research has pointed to more cautious, buy-and-hold behavior among the same age group. A survey highlighted by eMarketer found Gen Z's outsized interest in prediction markets stands apart from its broader investing habits. Analysts studying the overlap argue the two trends are not necessarily contradictory: low minimum stakes, gamified interfaces and the cultural framing of prediction markets as a test of knowledge rather than pure chance appear to let younger users treat betting as a separate, higher-risk category distinct from how they approach their core investment accounts.
