The Indicator from Planet Money - Mamdani markets, America bets, Gen Z drinks

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

It’s Indicators of the Week! On today’s episode: The inner workings of Mamdani’s marts; how much Americans gamble; and Gen-Z aren’t the sober generation we’ve been led to believe! Fact checking by Corey Bridges. Your Next Listen — Is gambling the reason we have pro sports?Connect with The Indicator — Sign up for The Indicator’s brand new newsletter — Find our socials, YouTube and more! — For sponsor-free episodes, subscribe to NPR+ Fact checking by Corey BridgesSupport public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Boyland, I'm so proud of myself. I just won the top prize at Ring Toss. Oh, is that why you're holding this giant teddy bear, Darien? No, I just brought this one from home, but what I did win was a subscription to the Indicator Newsletter. Oh, congratulations. That's very exciting. You can sign up too at NPR.org slash Indicator Newsletter. NPR. This is the Indicator from Planet Money.

I'm Daryam Woods here with Adrian Ma. And... Ricky Mulvey. Ricky Mulvey, financial podcaster. sometimes contributor to the Indicator. You're joining for a little while. We'll get to that later. But for now, it is.

Indicator's the week. That day of the week where we talk about our favorite numbers from the news. On today's episode, the economics of Mamdani's grocery stores. Americans getting super juiced on sports betting. And Gen Z. Turns out they like to drink, just like other generations. It's all after the break. Who monks does?

Doesn't like to tip back a cold one or three. Indicators of the week, Deerian Awards. I'm going to let New York City Mayor Mandani announce my indicator at the week. And I ask that we begin by reflecting on the number 30. So on Monday, the mayor announced the next steps to establish government's supermarkets. 30 was the percent discount that a core set of groceries would have to be priced at at these supermarkets. That's like pretty hefty discount. Yeah, grocery stores famously operate on razor-thin margins.

This announcement shed light on a few more details on how these city-backed grocery stores would work. The city is seeking requests from private grocery store companies who would manage the day-to-day operations. The city would pay for the land, the building, and the property taxes. So I guess the idea here is that this would compensate the businesses for selling those core goods at a 30% discount. Correct. Now, this is not the first attempt at a publicly subsidized grocery store in the U.S. It's currently being tried in Illinois, Georgia, Wisconsin, and similar projects have failed in Missouri in Florida. But of course, Mandani is the darling at the left and the villain for the right.

So all eyes will be on how this plays out in New York. And I'm sure the criticisms and compliments towards this project will be made in good faith, Darien. Yeah, keep dreaming. And from an economics point of view, it will be fascinating if you're selling eggs and milk and bread at 30% below the market price. some entrepreneurial people are going to want to take those eggs and that milk and that bread and sell it elsewhere for a roughly instant 30% profit.

This is known as Arbitrage. Milk scalpers. I can't wait to see them. Indeed. Okay. Has somebody not anticipated this? Yes. And in fact, Mamdani was asked about arbitrage. And his colleague, Gede Pack, answered that they were looking to focus on everyday New Yorkers and might have some kind of card that customers can use. Sounds like they're trying to go for the Costco model.

Yeah, the details aren't there. You'll be allowed to walk in without a card. But based on the request for proposal document, there will be some kind of card that gives you discounts and monitors people buying large amounts, some kind of enforcement of that. But I wouldn't be surprised if people do get creative to find a way around it.

I wouldn't either. And Adrian, your indicator is about gambling. It is. and the number is $166 billion, which comes from this fortune story that kind of got us talking in our morning meeting. The headline was gambling becomes America's favorite pastime

as Americans spend more on sports bets than movies, arts, museums, and music combined. The article says Americans wagered roughly $166 billion on sports betting last year, while they spent about 70, billion on movies and music and museums, etc. And at first blush, this is pretty astonishing, right? But then, as our colleague Darien has pointed out, this is also kind of a weird apples to oranges comparison. Yeah, exactly. You might spend a lot on gambling, but you're

expecting to win at least part of that back. So what they should be comparing is how much loss you're actually making when you're gambling. That's right. And that is, actually the key word that I think would make for a better comparison, revenue. And I looked up a stat from the American Gaming Association, and they say that sports gambling revenue last year, which is to say the money that companies got from consumers for facilitating their bets, was $17 billion. And by contrast, consumers spent roughly $16 billion in museums, $11.5 billion on recorded music, and North America's box office saw $9 billion in ticket sales. So still a large number, but not as ginomous. And I'm sure the number's a bit bigger if we count prediction market losses,

but when you look at it in context, if you combine these other entertainment categories, sports betting, not on top, but it's still a contender in there. Definitely. And I think the other thing this fortune story does get directionally right is that this is a exploding industry. It's growing very fast. And if you just compare sports betting in 2024 to 2025, it's a 23% growth in just one year. It's pretty strong. We're not even talking about all of the bets that people are making on prediction markets nowadays on sports, which is pretty much the same thing for all intents and purposes. It's a huge difference. It's trading, not gambling. Oh, right. You got a different word for the exact same thing. Okay. Rounding home base here. My bet is that this

next indicator from Ricky is going to be fantastic. So my indicator is good news for the alcohol industry. Do you remember the stories after COVID that younger generations had sworn off booze? I have seen these, yes. The drinking rate among Gen Z is virtually identical to the total adult population at 74%. That is my indicator. And the data comes from IWSR, which is an alcohol data company. Took some time, but I knew they would get there eventually. There was evidence that Gen Z was drinking less at least a couple of years ago, and there were a lot of theories. The youngs were more health conscious, going out less, switching to weed. But what this new data suggests is that Gen Z, they're just late starters. Once they're legal, they're drinking, but a little less. And that's

the same for other generations. Total alcohol volumes have declined for the past three years. My theory, maybe just everyone turned 30 at the same time and realized hangovers started getting worse. Yeah, I think people are definitely thinking of alcohol is less healthy than they used to, for sure. It's the new cigarettes. And hanging out in person is back. 18% of Gen Z drinkers said they drank alcohol with at least five other people the last time they drank. And that's the highest rate of any generation. So this is saying that Gen Z prefers to drink socially? Yeah, I mean, social isolation has become a big problem across generations. Gen Z, millennials, they're

lonelier than older generations. And boozing with your friends may be a treatment for this. That isn't medical advice, I assume. Not at all. But I think the point of this is sometimes we like to point the finger at one generation for behavior when in reality there's broad scale economic trends that affect everybody. Okay. Well, that's indicators of the week in the books. Before we go, let us turn the mic back to Daryon for a second because he's got a little announcement. Yeah, I'm going to write a book, so I'm actually going to be leaving the indicator for the rest of the year. This book is about decision-making and specifically the explore-exploit dilemma. Beautiful, and when can we get an advanced copy?

Well, it'll probably come out like 2028. As you might have learned from the Planet Money book series, the process of publishing a book is a very long time. But until I return at the start of the new year, 2027, I'm very happy to leave the show in the expert hands of the new co-host, filling in Ricky Mulvey. Daryan, congratulations on the book. I will do my best to take care of the show in your absence. I will miss you all. I'll keep listening, of course, and see you back on the podcast at the start of the next year. This episode was produced by Angel Kareirares with engineering by Jimmy Keely. It was fact-jacked by Corey Bridges, Kate Kincannon edits the show, and The Indicator is a production of NPR.