Why UK Gen Z Gamblers are Skipping Sport Bets and Going Straight to Slots

Gen Z: The New Kind of Player

Gen Z are the new kids on the block when it comes to gambling and they are switching things up. While the cut-offs are blurred, Gen Z is defined as someone born between 1997 and 2012. You’ll usually recognise them because of their tech savviness, pragmatic worldviews and determination to solve all sorts of social and environmental issues.

Gen Z has likely never used the phone book, manually rolled down a car window, or even used a paper map. As a generation who were practically born with digital literacy, technology has become the solution for everything. It is more than typical to do everything on your phone these days, like researching how to make the best roast potatoes or purchasing a pair of shoes you’ve had your eyes on for ages. The same shift is happening with gambling, as more people opt to spin on their phone than in a real-life casino.

The world is adapting to meet the needs of a seamless digital experience for Gen Z, who have never known a world without the internet. According to a 2023 report by the American Gaming Association, casinos are increasingly utilising social media and digital advertising to broaden their reach. Social media will give you a direct line of contact with millions of potential consumers and Gen Z are creating a whole new kind of player.

Is Sports Betting Losing Its Edge?

Sports betting before the age of technology was more of a ritual – heading down to your local store, putting pen to paper to place your bet. The act itself just doesn’t have that instant gratification that young people are yearning for.

With the world at our fingertips (or mobile phone), there has been a gradual decrease in how long we are willing to wait for something. For example, if you’re wanting to place a bet on a football game, you’ll have to wait for the game to be on for you to receive the gratification of placing the bet. Whereas other forms of gambling, like slots, will automatically give you that thrill.

Watching live sport is generally declining as an area of interest for young people. Fewer people are willing to sit down and consume an entire game of sport on a regular basis. Young people opt for backing individual sportspeople or singular events, like the Super Bowl or the World Cup, and therefore don’t necessarily follow a sport 365 days a year. In the era of short form content, young people often watch shortened highlight content after the sporting event has finished to get a quick summary.

Why Gen Z Prefers Slots

As a society, spinning on slot games is becoming the new normal for a lot of us. 32.6% of young people aged 18-24 in the UK admitted to participating in some form of gambling in 2024, with slots being the preferred method.

Slot games can provide fast results that don’t feel too daunting, especially when the backdrop of your bets is fish-themed. Other popular casino games like poker, roulette or baccarat follow a traditional pattern, whereas slots have transcended boring themes to offer innovative and fun gaming experiences. Slot games are designed for accessible entertainment, while even online sports betting requires the completion of a betting slip which prioritises functionality. Slot machines tend to offer more entertainment than a data-driven sports bet.

The rise of the slot craze mirrors the rise of popular mobile games like Candy Crush. Back in 2012, Candy Crush was inescapable and highlighted to slot developers how gamefied rewards can keep people playing even when there is no money to be won. Play’n GO’s Book of Dead is one of the top rated slots right now and this is largely down to it deploying gamefied and narrative elements that bring players back time and again. The game is built around a story that follows Rich Wilde, who resembles an Indiana Jones type character. Following this story, along with a progressive system and a rewarding feedback loop, you’ve got yourself a top rated slot game. It’s no wonder Gen Z can’t stop spinning!

The Influence of Social Media

There is a corner of the internet for just about everything these days and this includes Gambling. Content Creators have flooded platforms like YouTube, Twitch and TikTok to promote various games and casinos, including livestreaming slots to show their audience how fun it is and the winning potential.

Gambling Gamers is a subsection that has grown from the gaming community: the fastest growing community on the internet. Currently, 9% of consumers follow a gaming creator, and this figure rises to 17% when focusing on 13-34 year olds. While this doesn’t necessarily show how influential iGaming creators are, it gives insight into how traction can grow within this industry. One of the largest gambling Influencers, LadyLuckHQ has a following of 883k on YouTube and 2,775k on TikTok, with her content mainly focused on watching her win in casinos or playing online games.

Another large Influencer in the gambling world is rapper and singer Drake. He has been in a partnership with Stake, an online casino, since 2022. The rapper has dedicated a significant amount of time promoting the site, with large-scale advertisement projects or livestreaming on the site. These livestreams often show him having fun with friends while gambling, usually concluding in him ‘winning millions’.

The question arises: how ethical is this influence? Governments worldwide are beginning to recognise that Internet addiction should be considered a health concern, especially for young people. Studies have revealed that a higher consumption of social media can increase your chances of having gambling-related issues. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that there seems to be a direct link between excessive Internet usage and gambling-related issues.

Is Gen Z More Risk-Aware?

It’s difficult to turn a blind eye to threats in the age of technology. One study has found that Gen Z actually perceive more dangers in life than previous generations and the cause of this is likely being fed a constant stream of overemphasised threats. But how aware does this make Gen Z about the threat of gambling?

82% of young people agree that they feel well informed about the risks of gambling and yet 26% of 11-16 year olds had spent their own money on gambling activity in 2024. While this usually involves gambling activities such as arcade games, betting with friends and family or playing cards, which have the potential to act as a gateway to developing a gambling issue. Gen Z continues to admit that they can recognise the social and ethical side effects of gambling, perhaps more self-aware than older generations. This awareness of the negative impact gambling can have doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t still do it.

For Gen Z, gambling is usually seen as more of a social activity than a solitary act. This means if one person in a friendship group is gambling, chances are they all probably are. This is the impact of peer pressure which means people often overlook the potential risks involved. With knowledge at their fingertips, Gen Z are definitely more clued about the harmful side effects of gambling but this doesn’t mean they won’t necessarily do it.