Young adults under 21 banned from sports betting traded $5.4B on Kalshi this year

Young adults between 18 and 21 — too young to legally gamble on sportsbooks — have traded $5.4 billion on prediction market Kalshi so far this year, according to a CNN analysis.Kalshi, which has seen an explosive rise in popularity over the past few years, allows users to bet on everything from the next leading man in the “James Bond” franchise to how long it will take for the US and Iran to reach a nuclear deal.It also lets users place sports bets, which – combined with parlays, an all-or-nothing bundle of bets that is popular with sports gamblers – account for 80% of Kalshi’s overall volume. The CNN analysis found that Kalshi users between 18 and 21 traded roughly $3.9 billion in sports and parlays this year – and that figure is only expected to keep climbing.Critics have argued that prediction markets serve as a loophole for young gamblers, since they are regulated like financial markets – meaning they’re available to anyone 18 and over – and not casinos and sportsbooks, which are 21 and up.Gen Z – those born from 1997 to 2007 – has been seen as an investing-savvy cohort, investing earlier and diversifying their assets more than previous generations.But the concern is that an early introduction to prediction markets could derail this progress.More than half of Gen Z investors have redirected money intended for their long-term investment strategies toward sports bets, according to a Betterment survey of 1,000 investors.A survey of a thousand boys by Common Sense Media found that a third of 11-, 12- and 13-year-olds were already gambling, and by the age of 17, 50% said they had gambled in the past year.According to CNN, Kalshi is only expected to see an increase in sports bets from young people on its platform through the rest of the year.“Normally you’d have a big summer lull, but the World Cup changed that completely,” Jonathan Michaels, who runs a gaming industry consulting firm, told the outlet. “Prediction markets will also...