“The only generation that plays slot machines anymore are the Baby Boomers,” says Hedgeye Gaming, Lodging & Leisure analyst Todd Jordan. The average age of gamblers keeps going up (currently it’s 53-years old), but even Gen-Xers who fit the typical demographic aren’t gambling.
Why is that?
“I attribute that to Generation X being the first video game generation, with games like Atari,” Jordan explains in the brief video excerpt above. “They’re just not interested in games that have random outcomes.”
The problems don’t end there. The population of 45-64 year olds – the typical gambling age demographic – is also in secular decline.
“So you’ve got two headwinds there. Nobody is playing and there is less population growth in that core metric,” Jordan says.