During Thursday’s “Squawk on the Street,” CNBC’s Meredith Whitney said that sports betting could be to blame for young men’s current dating habits.
“The fastest growing leisure spend is fantasy sports and online sports betting,”
Whitney said.
Whitney went on to explain that the lack of interest in dating could mean further issues in the housing markets.
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.
A financial analyst on CNBC implied that legalized sports betting could be to blame for young men not getting married, not dating and not having sex.
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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 50 percent of those young men have no interest in dating, not even casually. And 50 percent of those young men have no interest in dating, not even casually.”
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.
“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.
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.
