Financial analyst suggests sports betting is why men aren’t having sex

The increased legalization of sports betting across the United States has had many far-reaching effects.

But while much of the focus has been placed on addiction and the impact on the games themselves, one financial thinks that the industry could be blamed for a surprising societal issue: the lack of young men getting married, dating, or even having sex.

Appearing on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street on Tuesday, Meredith Whitney — who has been touted as “The Oracle of Wall Street” and has been credited for predicting the 2008 financial crisis — discussed the role that legalized sports betting could play in a potential housing crisis. Whitney’s thesis is that young men aren’t as interested in meeting women and starting a family as they used to be because they’re too busy betting on their phones.

“The fastest growing leisure spend is fantasy sports and online sports betting,” Whitney said, noting that retail spending in almost every other industry is currently down. “The negative impact is that it’s all young men. And I dovetailed that with Pew Research, that says that 63 percent of young men are single. And that’s the highest it has ever been. And 50 percent of those young men have no interest in dating, not even casually. And 30 percent of young men say they have not had sex in over a year and don’t seem to care.”

What does this have to do with housing?

According to Whitney, the U.S. is experiencing its lowest housing formation growth rate since such data was collected more than 60 years ago. And if men aren’t forming families — partly because they’re too busy placing same game parlays — then that could prove problematic for a housing market in which 74 percent of the inventory is currently owned by people over 50.

“When these people start to sell, which I believe they will start to sell with a vengeance next year, who are the buyers going to be?” Whitney said. “I just think that homebuilders are smart; they’re building a lot of rental properties. But people are not going to be buying into these bigger homes.”

Fear not, men — there are more factors at play than just your prop bets. Another problem, per Whitney, is women taking videos of themselves at Taylor Swift concerts.

“You have young men who don’t want to date and young women who are spending their time, really with Instagram moments, going to the Taylor Swift concert,” Whitney said. “I don’t know if you’ve been to them — it’s all filmed about yourself.”

America’s marriage rate was in decline even before the Supreme Court struck down a national ban on sports gambling in 2018 and even recently bounced back to its pre-COVID-19 levels this year. While one could certainly argue that the increased availability of sports betting — or any vice, for that matter — could hurt society, fewer people getting married and starting families seems to be more of a product of a shift in ideology than a matter of people (men or women) being too busy on their phones.

[CNBC]