Healthcare Students Turning to Prediction Markets, OnlyFans to Pay Tuition

Aspiring doctors, nurses and other healthcare students are turning to adult content creation, prediction markets and sports betting to contend with steep tuition bills.

Clasp, a loan-based hiring platform for various healthcare fields, today unveiled the initial iteration of its State of Healthcare Student Finances report. That study gauges “non-traditional income sources” healthcare students are using to deal with school costs and, indeed, some of those sources are unique. They include content creation on OnlyFans and using prediction markets and sports betting to raise cash for school.

The poll, conducted by Pollfish, queried 1,000 U.S. healthcare students. It did not reveal which medical or nursing schools respondents attend.

Some Concerning Trends

Twenty-seven percent of the healthcare students polled by Clasp said they’ve used an online sportsbook or traded on a yes/no exchange with half saying they’ve bet on DraftKings. Another 42% said they’ve bet on FanDuel while nearly a third (31%) said they traded event contracts on Polymarket.

Prediction market and sportsbook usage rates are higher among healthcare students than the typical 18-to-22-year-olds. Clasp points out that 73% of healthcare students are using sportsbooks or yes/no exchanges multiple times per week with 15% participating in those forms of wagering on a daily basis. Those percentages are 14% and 4%, respectively, in the broader group of 18-to-22-year-olds. Add to that, many healthcare students are struggling to make money on prediction markets or through sports betting.

That jibes with a slew of other studies indicating the bulk of retail participants on prediction markets struggle to turn profits.

Female Healthcare Students Betting, 6% Selling ‘Spicy’ Content

As legalized sports betting proliferated in the U.S., operators attempted to woo more female bettors. It appears women aspiring to healthcare careers got that message. Eighty-one percent of the respondents to the Clasp survey are women and 20% told the pollster they’ve bet on sports or traded on prediction markets. That’s double the rate at which women bet on sports on a national basis.

Healthcare students are using some other non-traditional income-generators, including 21% delivering “paid content creation on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, OnlyFans, or Substack,” according to Clasp.

Six percent have even sold feet pictures “or similar content online” while 10% have considered donating their eggs or sperm.