{"id":663328,"date":"2026-09-05T00:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=663328"},"modified":"2026-09-05T00:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T00:30:00","slug":"online-betting-adoption-goes-parabolic-first-timers-triple-gen-z-overtakes-millennials-and-football-season-hasnt-even-begun-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=663328","title":{"rendered":"Online Betting Adoption Goes Parabolic: First-Timers Triple, Gen Z Overtakes Millennials, And Football Season Hasn&#8217;t Even Begun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">Online Betting Adoption Goes Parabolic: First-Timers Triple, Gen Z Overtakes Millennials, And Football Season Hasn&#8217;t Even Begun<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p>Online betting is <strong>off to the races &#8211;<\/strong>\u00a0and this summer the adoption curve started looking like a hockey stick.<\/p>\n<p>According to a new analysis by Bank of America &#8211; which can see every ACH, debit and credit card payment its customers make to and from sportsbooks, horse-racing platforms and prediction markets their own customers make:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Roughly <strong>5% of BofA customers<\/strong> sent money to an online betting platform in July.<\/li>\n<li>The number of online bettors is <strong>up 40% since the start of the year<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The number of <strong>first-time bettors in June and July was more than triple<\/strong> the January level.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2013-58-07%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=ns8jX7JU\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2013-58-07%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=ns8jX7JU\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"22185355-9bd8-4e1a-a2eb-ab0798f22406\" data-responsive-image-style=\"inline_images\" height=\"238\" width=\"500\" class=\"inline-images image-style-inline-images\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2013-58-07%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=ns8jX7JU\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The bank credits the summer spike to the World Cup and &#8220;promotions and buzz&#8221; around prediction markets<\/strong>, and fair enough: every adoption curve has a catalyst. What matters is what the base looks like once the catalyst passes, and here the seasonal pattern is instructive. First-time users jump with every major sports season, and the 2025 football season &#8211; which the bank defines as September through February, so it sweeps in the NFL, college ball and most of the NBA and NHL &#8211; produced <strong>22% more first-timers than the year before<\/strong>. Each season enrolls a larger freshman class. The class that enrolled this summer was three times the size of January&#8217;s, and it arrived right before the busiest stretch of the calendar.<\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/beofa.png?itok=J4r54O1k\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/beofa.png?itok=J4r54O1k\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"31bab588-95f8-4198-bcc0-45138d139706\" data-responsive-image-style=\"inline_images\" height=\"429\" width=\"500\" class=\"inline-images image-style-inline-images\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/beofa.png?itok=J4r54O1k\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nor is this something people try once and forget. Per a CivicScience survey cited in the note, <strong>34% of online sports bettors wager weekly and 23% bet daily<\/strong>; fewer than one in five are the several-times-a-year Super Bowl crowd. <strong>That is the engagement profile of a social app, not a lottery ticket.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2013-59-46%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=1mwdPOB2\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2013-59-46%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=1mwdPOB2\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"ec1297ca-e149-4980-b432-ddef8fdb638e\" data-responsive-image-style=\"inline_images\" height=\"401\" width=\"500\" class=\"inline-images image-style-inline-images\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2013-59-46%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=1mwdPOB2\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>The turning point<\/h2>\n<p>By generation, <strong>Gen Z (48%) and Millennials (40%) accounted for 88% of online betting activity in July<\/strong>. Gen X managed 9%; Baby Boomers, 3%. And as recently as this spring, Millennials were the larger group. Gen Z overtook them this summer &#8211; a shift BofA describes as a &#8220;turning point&#8221; in the composition of online bettors.<\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2014-07-09%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=yFYbNSBv\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2014-07-09%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=yFYbNSBv\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"52423dea-3e2c-48a0-9e85-c0394aaa2e40\" data-responsive-image-style=\"inline_images\" height=\"413\" width=\"500\" class=\"inline-images image-style-inline-images\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2014-07-09%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=yFYbNSBv\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>BofA defines Gen Z as anyone born after 1995, which means the oldest members are turning 30 this year and the cohort came of age alongside legal, app-based sports betting. BofA points out that <strong>younger consumers have consistently been first to adopt every emerging digital platform<\/strong> &#8211; crypto, BNPL, online marketplaces &#8211; and that betting appears to be following the same script.<\/p>\n<p><strong>When it comes to income &#8211;\u00a0<\/strong>betting activity is split almost evenly across terciles &#8211; <strong>37% lower, 34% middle, 29% higher. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2014-07-28%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=N-ZtmTTu\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2014-07-28%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=N-ZtmTTu\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"c9af819a-6f4b-470d-abb1-c8f3d6705b7d\" data-responsive-image-style=\"inline_images\" height=\"444\" width=\"500\" class=\"inline-images image-style-inline-images\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2014-07-28%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=N-ZtmTTu\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Oh it&#8217;s\u00a0<em>investing!<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>According to a BofA survey conducted in March, <strong>20% of respondents said they consider sports betting a form of investing<\/strong>, with Gen Z twice as likely as everyone else to say so. Across every generation, buying event contracts on a prediction market was <em>more<\/em> likely to be classified as investing than placing a sportsbook wager.<\/p>\n<p>Prediction markets have listed contracts on almost anything &#8211; whether a politician sips water on camera during a speech, how many flu cases the year will bring &#8211; dressed in the language of derivatives: standardized, exchange-traded, resolved at a point in time. BofA notes that <strong>prediction markets, crypto, retail trading and sports betting all share &#8220;community participation and real-time pricing,&#8221;<\/strong> which is a polite way of saying they share a user interface. To a generation raised on the Fed put, zero-day options and a community tab, a football game is simply another underlying.<\/p>\n<h2>And then there&#8217;s\u00a0 the red tape&#8230;<\/h2>\n<p>Naturally, the regulators have noticed &#8211; and, naturally, their first move is a jurisdictional fight. <strong>The CFTC&#8217;s position, per BofA&#8217;s public-policy team, is that certain event contracts traded on federally regulated exchanges are derivatives under the Commodity Exchange Act and therefore federal turf.<\/strong> State and tribal regulators counter that contracts tied to sports and entertainment are gambling with extra steps and belong under existing state gaming, licensing and consumer-protection law. <strong>Lawmakers from both parties and both chambers have filed bills.<\/strong> The CFTC has also opened a rulemaking on perpetual futures and issued an advisory warning event-contract venues away from sweepstakes-style rewards and prizes &#8220;based on pure chance&#8221; &#8211; the sort of promotional program that helped fill the summer&#8217;s freshman class &#8211; and, per BofA Global Research, is trying to draw a brighter line between prediction markets and sportsbooks<strong> by targeting in-house market making, incentive programs and &#8220;casino style odds.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>None of it slows adoption. Arguing over whether a contract is a &#8220;derivative&#8221; or a &#8220;wager&#8221; is <strong>an argument over who gets to regulate and tax the growth, not whether the growth happens<\/strong>. By the time the rulebook is written, the users will already be there. Most of them already are.<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s not even football season yet&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>      <span class=\"field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden\"><a title=\"View user profile.\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/users\/tyler-durden\" lang=\"\" class=\"username\" xml:lang=\"\">Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden\">Fri, 09\/04\/2026 &#8211; 20:30<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/Screenshot%202026-09-03%20at%2013-58-07%20Online%20betting%20platforms%20What%E2%80%99s%20the%20money%20line%20-%20online-betting-platforms.pdf_.png?itok=ns8jX7JU\" title=\"Online Betting Adoption Goes Parabolic: First-Timers Triple, Gen Z Overtakes Millennials, And Football Season Hasn&apos;t Even Begun\" \/><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Online Betting Adoption Goes Parabolic: First-Timers Triple, Gen Z Overtakes Millennials, And Football Season Hasn&#8217;t Even Begun Online betting is off to the races &#8211;\u00a0and this summer the adoption curve started looking like a hockey stick. According to a new analysis by Bank of America &#8211; which can see every ACH, debit and credit card&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=663328\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Online Betting Adoption Goes Parabolic: First-Timers Triple, Gen Z Overtakes Millennials, And Football Season Hasn&#8217;t Even Begun<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":663312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-663328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-empowerment","category-national-security","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=663328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/663312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=663328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=663328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=663328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}