The American dream is ‘very dead’ for young Americans, says Mrs Dow Jones

The American Dream is “pretty much dead” for millennials and Gen Z, according to financial activist Haley Sacks, better known as Mrs. Dow Jones. In an interview with Business Insider, Sacks pointed out that the traditional symbols of middle-class success, home ownership, stable jobs, and retirement savings, have become out of reach for young Americans, pushing them toward gambling and conflict as alternatives to wealth.

The claim comes on the back of record-breaking numbers in the US gambling industry. The American Gaming Association reported that US commercial gaming revenue will reach nearly $79 billion by 2025, the highest ever, with sports betting revenue reaching nearly $17 billion, up nearly 23 percent year-on-year, and iGaming revenue exceeding $10 billion for the first time.

America’s youth are driving much of that growth. Northwestern Mutual’s 2026 survey found that 32 percent of Gen Z respondents and 24 percent of millennials participate in or are considering sports betting, rates that are significantly higher than older age groups.

Sacks, a Fortune 40 Under 40 honoree and founder of financial education company Finance is Cool, characterizes the change as logical rather than reckless. His argument is that when a first home costs multiples of the average worker’s annual salary and student loan debt averages about $33,000 for millennials and $22,000 for Gen Z, gambling starts to look like one of the few images available for a life-changing sum of money.

Economic data provide some support for the underlying frustration. Beyond Finance’s March 2026 survey found that more than 70 percent of Gen Z and millennial respondents described their spending as “survival mode,” which combines the essentials with little left over to save or invest.” Economic concerns are also evident in other ways, as university graduates talk about motivational speakers telling them that AI will change their jobs while the entry-level job market contracts around them.

But jumping from economic frustrations to gambling as a get-rich strategy is where the argument runs into trouble. A joint study by researchers at UCLA, USC, and Harvard found that the introduction of online sports betting in the state was associated with a ten percent increase in the likelihood of bankruptcy among young adults. Countries that added mobile betting saw a 25 percent increase.

The researchers found that the convenience of phone-based betting, which is available around the clock and does not require a trip to the casino, was a major cause of financial stress. The pattern is mostly focused on men under 35, the same demographic that most sportsbook advertising targets.

Gambling addiction among American youth is increasing along with income. NPR reported on the growing number of young adults presenting with gambling-related debt, with advisors noting that many got into sports betting by promoting free bets and social media advertising that positioned betting as a skill-based investment rather than a game of chance.

Sacks admitted in an interview with Business Insider that gambling is not a financial system, but argued that the impetus behind it reveals something real about how disconnected financial advice has become in the economic reality facing people under 40. He pointed out the gap between the advice young people are getting, save consistently, index funds, buy a home, and the housing market that makes following that advice and the work environment feel impossible.

The tension between those two realities is not new, but it is moderate. Technological layoffs such as the AI ​​revolution have eliminated tens of thousands of entry-level and mid-level roles across industry by 2024, instilling a sense in young workers that the system isn’t built for them.

The financial services industry has seen a change. Betting platforms and fintech apps are increasingly marketing themselves to younger users in language borrowed from investment, offering “portfolios“betting” and “research tools” that blur the line between trading and betting. European regulators have begun cracking down on speculative markets that cross that same border, with Spain banning Polymarket and Kalshi for operating without gambling licenses.

In the US, the regulatory picture is more permissive. Thirty-eight states and Washington DC now allow some form of legalized sports betting, up from one state in 2018. The expansion has been driven by state governments attracted by tax revenue and a Supreme Court ruling that overturned a ban on sports gambling.

It is important to note some caveats about the framework. Sacks is a financial influencer and content creator, not an economist, and his conclusions are based on anecdotal observations and experiences of his audience rather than peer-reviewed research. The record of the gambling industry’s income itself does not prove that young people are gambling instead of saving, it can indicate an increase in the number of people in legal markets, more states coming online, or more spending by existing bettors of all age groups.

The correlation between economic anxiety and gambling behavior is well documented in the academic literature, but correlation is not causation. Some young adults may gamble because they feel economically hopeless, others may gamble for entertainment, and the two groups may overlap in ways that the available data do not separate cleanly.

What the numbers clearly show is that a generation dealing with record housing costs, massive student debt, and an entry-level job market is once again gambling at historically high rates, and that the financial consequences of that gambling are falling disproportionately on younger and more economically vulnerable gamblers. Whether that represents a sensible response to an unsustainable economy, as Sacks says, or a dangerous coping mechanism employed by a fast-growing industry, depends on which side of the bankruptcy equation you stand on.