Electric vehicles registered in the US

As Americans have registered more electric vehicles, they have also gambled more money in commercial casinos, a correlation that suggests either that EV owners celebrate their environmental virtue with a trip to the slots or that the same growing economy that funds Teslas also funds roulette tables. The coefficient is 0.932 across thirteen years, during which both curves rose with the conviction of industries that have found their customers and intend to keep them. The house always wins, and apparently so does the battery.

EV registrations grew from 17,000 in 2011 to over 3 million by 2023, while commercial casino revenue grew from about 35 billion to over 66 billion, both dipping in 2020 and recovering strongly afterward. Both trends track disposable income in a growing economy: EVs are a premium consumer purchase, and casino gambling is a discretionary entertainment expense. The Venn diagram of people who can afford a 50,000-dollar car and people who can afford to lose money at a casino is not small. Both industries also benefited from geographic expansion—more states legalized casinos, and more states offered EV incentives—and from technological disruption: EVs disrupted automotive, while online sports betting (legalized in 2018) disrupted gambling. Growth was the mood of the decade.

Thirteen years of EVs and casino revenue growing together is a story about a wealthy society spending on both virtue and vice with equal enthusiasm. The EV charges in the garage while the casino app runs on the phone, and the economy that enables both does not require a choice between them. The odds, in both cases, are calculated differently than the buyer believes.