Richest Americans Spend $25k Per Year on Gambling

What do you do for fun if you’re an American multi-millionaire. Apparently a lot of gambling because the richest Americans spend over $25,000 on gaming per year.

This finding comes from Time, which compared the $25k that the richest Americans gamble to the average US household income of $55,775 per year. This means that the wealthiest American’s are spending roughly half of what the average family makes on gambling expenses.

As for what Time considers the “richest Americans,” they say that anybody who has a fortune of at least $25 million fits into this category. They also point out that another 15% of this group spent at least $10,000 on casino games, meaning 40% of the wealthy population loves to gamble.

So how does this compare to the gaming habits of everyday Americans? According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, those who visit Sin City bet around $600 per trip and make almost two trips per year. This equals close to $1,200 in gambling expenses, which pales in comparison to the elites.

But another view is that average Vegas visitors are losing over 4% of their annual household income on gambling. Meanwhile, those worth at least $25 million are only losing 0.001% of their fortune on casino games per year.

Time also went into detail on how the wealthiest Americans spend big in other ways, including 40% purchasing $10,000 in sports tickets per year, while spending roughly the same amount of artworks, play tickets, symphonies, and museums.

Another separation between the rich and average comes in how we spend on clothes. One in four wealthy Americans spend more than $50,000 on clothes annually, with over a third purchasing at least $25,000 in jewelry.

Perhaps the biggest divide of all comes in how much the rich spend on travel and vacations. Almost half of rich people spend a minimum of $10,000 on vacations. 8% really spent heavily, paying over $100,000 for annual vacations.

Time points out that spending big on vacations may be one of the best investments one can make as they write: “Spending on experiences has been shown to generate more happiness than purchasing material goods, so travel spending is a great way for the ultra rich to get the best return on their investment.”

Perhaps gambling also makes rich people happy too because almost the same amount of them spend at least $10k on casino games annually.