Aaron Brown, Columnist

Gambling Is No Longer Investing’s Evil Twin

Legal and regulatory attitudes are rooted in a morality few people accept today.

March 25, 2025 at 1:51 PM UTC

Aaron Brown is a former head of financial market research at AQR Capital Management. He is also an active crypto investor, and has venture capital investments and advisory ties with crypto firms. He is the author of the soon-to-be-released "Wrong Number."

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Photographer: Steph Chambers/Getty Images North America

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I suspect many people yawned when the popular online brokerage Robinhood Markets Inc. announced it will offer sports and other prediction market derivatives, starting with betting on the NCAA March Madness basketball games.

After all, 22% of Americans and nearly half of men between the ages of 18 and 49 have made online sport bets, according to a recent poll. It’s likely that most of Robinhood’s 25 million customers (about 11 million of whom are active) are already wagering on sports and perhaps trading in other prediction markets. The Robinhood customers I know all bet on sports.