[waynecochran]

   50% of all men below 50 have an online sports betting account.

Hmmm .. you might have to back that stat up. I am guessing there are men who have several accounts and over counting is happening. Or that was just made up like 62% of all statistics.

[moelf]

https://sri.siena.edu/2025/02/18/22-of-all-americans-half-of...

[anfilt]

Even with that link I have trouble believing it myself.

Like how was this data/survey gathered/administrated? Sample size ect...

Also I don't understand how sports seem to get so much attention. Like they are just games why?

Another post I was reading a bit ago was how Spain what basically suffering internet outages to stop pirate streams of games on the weekend: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45323856

Like why is a game considered so important that even internet traffic has to suffer. It boggles my mind.

[ryukoposting]

I don't find it hard to believe at all. Here's an incredibly unscientific way of looking at it:

I'm 27. Among me and a hastily-assembled list of 14 of my male friends, 7 of us definitely have at least one sports betting account, 4 definitely don't, and I'm not sure about the other 4. I'd bet (heh) at least one of them has an account.

It might be more informative to see how many men actually use their sports betting accounts. Technically I have an account, but I haven't used it in over 2 years. Won a bet that the Heat would beat the Celtics in the conference finals, realized I was now net-positive by several hundred dollars, cashed out, and uninstalled the app. Never looked back.

[gruez]

>It might be more informative to see how many men actually use their sports betting accounts.

A sibling poster posted a link to Siena survey that has related betting statistics. For males the percentage that "have accounts" vs those who "had accounts" is 30% and 6% respectively. You see similar ratios in the age breakdowns. Therefore it's safe to say that around 40% of males below 50 "have" betting accounts.

[gwbas1c]

There's a difference between having an account and actually using it.

I suspect the amount of US men who regularly bet on sports is much, much lower.

That being said: I find sports extremely boring. If I had a lot of social pressure to watch sports, I'd probably gamble, just to keep the game interesting.

[tokioyoyo]

To be fair, at some point I registered in one of those sites because a bar had 50% discount on the tab or something similar for first time account registration. I don't even live in the states, was just visiting.

[qingcharles]

Yeah, I registered with every single one I could find when they all had $300 bonuses, just took the bonuses, made 99% sure bets on everything (bet $300, win $300.01) and cashed out about $3000 and never touched them again.

[guappa]

I'd have just gone to a different bar.

[xienze]

I'm definitely skeptical of this. When my state legalized sports betting there was around 6 or 7 books that came online and they ALL had pretty juicy sign up bonuses, like "bet $5 and get $250 in free bets." Damn right I signed up for all those books to get the free bets and converted those into cash by doing safe moneyline bets.

[LightBug1]

Off the bat - I wouldn't be surprised.

I don't bet at all (excluding the financial markets), but I'm often surprised at how many of my relatives and people from all walks of life pull out their phone and fire up an online betting app. All men.

[Yeul]

I hate betting but even I can't avoid taking a chance on the big new year's lottery. Chance of winning is virtually nil of course.

[myvoiceismypass]

Wonder if this counts Robinhood's "predictive markets" for sporting events that somehow gets around California's ban on online sports betting.