The American Dream, Now Including: Gambling!

I’m sure a specific picture pops in your head when I say the word gambling. Bright lights, the sound of pinging slot games, “Win Big Now!” on the Las Vegas Strip. Less so do you think of opening an app on your phone, pressing a couple buttons, and going back to watching football. 

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In a world where nothing is promised but the phone in your hand, it's easy to treat it as your lifeline. “The world’s gone mad. Trade it.” Kalshi (one of America’s top sports betting apps)’s tagline capitalizes on this, recognizing that the phone is a place of solace in an insane world. When betting is easy to access with a few taps, it begins to feel less like a gamble and more like the dopamine hit of watching an Instagram reel. 

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Gambling is no longer a dirty little secret, but rather a normalized symptom of a deteriorating economy. 52% of men aged 18-49 have “...an active account with an online sportsbook such as DraftKings, Caesars, FanDuel, or BetMGM.” I’d never heard of most of these platforms before, but apparently I was the last to know. Kalshi has 518K app store reviews, DraftKings has 1.2M, Caesars has 110K, FanDuel has 2.2M, and BetMGM has 261K. These are just the app reviews — a fraction of the actual downloads. Yes, one person can have multiple apps, but these numbers are still SHOCKING.

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The stats get even scarier when you focus on 18-29-year-olds, aka adult Gen Zs. More than half of Gen Zs have spent money on betting. That’s the highest percentage in a population in history. 

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It’s no secret that money is tight for most Americans; I can personally speak for early-20-somethings. Most of us make about $35k a year, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is over $2k a month, and you’re hard-pressed to find anyone who landed a job in the field they got their degree in. 

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As of August 2026, Gen Z recent graduates (aged 20-24) are facing unemployment rates of 7.1%, which dwarfs the national average of 4.2%. The federal minimum wage is holding steady at $7.25/hr while the agreed-upon livable salary for the least expensive state is $80k a year — that’s over 5x the income of someone working full time at a minimum wage job. It's no wonder that even newly graduated engineering majors are working two waitressing gigs to get by.

Young adults get a lot of flak for being on our phones so much… but my hypothesis is that phone addiction is so prolific because screen time is the only free thing to do. Now, imagine that while you’re scrolling on social media to avoid paid activities, an ad pops up promising that betting on some fantastic odds can create real revenue. It’d be understandable to want to take that risk if it meant the possibility of making a lot of money quickly. Anything to be able to take a breath once in a while and not feel like you’re drowning.

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But when did this become a problem? With the invention of gambling, with the increased accessibility of online betting, or with everyone’s current financial situation? 

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Research suggests it's a combination of the latter two. “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,” states Andrew Lendnal from Wealthspire.

Young minds trained by algorithms to need rapid-fire dopamine hits are now trading long-term investing for short-term, high-risk gambling. Funny how that’s worked out. If the ease of being able to move your investment money to gambling is the problem, then how did apps become so prolific? Who allowed this? It starts with the United States Supreme Court. Murphy v. NCAA (2018) struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which had previously banned sports betting in nearly every state.

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This case didn’t create an immediate boom in sports betting on its own—it shifted responsibility to individual states. From here, separate acts were passed that allowed these platforms to proliferate. “In 2025, Americans placed roughly $166 billion in bets on sporting events. That’s more than the entire U.S. movie, music, book, and museum industries generated in revenue combined,” says Catherine Gionio of Fortune Magazine. 

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The apps have taken it one step further. A study from ESPN states, “Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket allow users to trade on the yes/no outcome of events, including sports. Unlike legal sportsbooks, these platforms can operate in all 50 states, including California and Texas, where sports betting is not legal.” These companies have found a loophole and can operate anywhere, regardless of a state’s official rulings. 

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As if the billions spent on sports betting wasn’t enough to upset you, I’m sorry to say these platforms have been expanding their game. Their main goal is to make a profit — off of anything. You can bet on who will win a political election, the course of inflation rates, or even the outcomes of severe, climate-driven weather conditions. Kalshi’s partnership with the Weather Company reads to me as something that will inevitably evolve into “I hope the extreme heatwave in Europe keeps going for at least a couple more weeks, or else I won’t win my bet!” being a casual statement of our future. Turning climate change into a fun little game is the last thing we need. Kristin Toussaint of Fast Company tells us, “Climate experts are already frustrated at how ‘fun-in-the-sun’ media coverage makes light of heat wave risks; betting on heat could be another way to downplay those risks,” the exact ramifications worried about by climate scientists.

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The floodgates of sports betting may have been opened, but rowing against the tide is merely a matter of will… and perhaps the brute force of account deletion. It starts with recognizing that these apps are highly profitable for the billion-dollar corporations that run them, but a net loss for the average user. Betting is gambling in a thinly veiled disguise, and just like social media, these apps are built to get you addicted. Once you settle into these facts, the “promise” from the ads becomes a lot less alluring. 

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There are many far more rewarding, ethical, and even fun ways to make your money work for you in the long term. Your happiness and comfort can be guaranteed, lasting much longer than a spike of winning followed by the crash of losing. Your money should work for you, in line with your values, and we get that. Getting everything in order can feel overwhelming, but Commons is here to help.

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If you or someone you know is struggling with gambling, free and confidential support is available 24/7 through the National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-MY-RESET.