America's Future Nurses Are Betting on Kalshi and DraftKings to Pay for Nursing School, According to Survey Data from Clasp

• New report reveals a shadow economy of tuition financing: more than half of healthcare students are turning to non-traditional income, including gambling, AI data labeling, and selling content on OnlyFans, to afford the one career America still calls safe

Clasp, the loan-linked hiring platform for healthcare, today released its inaugural State of Healthcare Student Finances report, the first dataset measuring the non-traditional income sources healthcare students are using to pay for school. 

The survey of 1,000 U.S. healthcare students, fielded by Pollfish, finds that more than 1 in 4 (27%) have used a betting or prediction market platform. Two-thirds of student bettors (67%) treat winnings as real or potential school money: 24% say winnings are part of their plan to pay for school, and another 43% say it could help.

Nursing has been called a path to prosperity and one of the last careers AI can't replace, with the Labor Department projecting 35% job growth for advanced-degree nurses through 2034. Then, on July 1, new federal loan limits capped annual graduate borrowing for nursing and allied health students at $20,500 per year, while students in professional programs like law and medicine can borrow up to $50,000. Students are navigating these changes half-blind: 52% had never heard of the new caps, and only 32% knew their programs face lower borrowing limits than law or medicine.

Key findings include:

The betting economy. Betting among future nurses isn't a hobby; it's habitual, it's demographically unheard of, and it mostly isn't paying off.

• More than 1 in 4 healthcare students (27%) have used a betting or prediction market platform. Among them: DraftKings (50%), Kalshi (45%), FanDuel (42%), Polymarket (31%). Respondents also volunteered platforms outside the survey's list, including PrizePicks, Underdog, and Fliff.
• 73% of healthcare student bettors use these platforms at least a few times a week; 15% bet daily. In the NCAA's national survey of 18-to-22-year-olds, just 14% of young-adult bettors bet a few times a week or more, and only 4% bet daily.
• 81% of respondents are women, and more than 1 in 5 of them have used these platforms, roughly double the rate at which American women bet on sports nationally.
• 69% of those who started did so to make extra money for school or living expenses, not entertainment.
• Asked whether these platforms have made or cost them money, only 40% of student bettors say they're net positive; half say they roughly break even.
• The most common amount won or lost is $100 to $1,000, and 1 in 10 report amounts over $5,000. Two respondents reported wins or losses above $50,000. 

The rest of the shadow economy. More than half of all respondents (56%) have turned to at least one non-traditional income source to cover tuition or living expenses. 

• At the top, tied at 21% each: heavy credit card use and paid content creation on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, OnlyFans, or Substack. Six percent have sold feet pics or similar content online.
• 11% have trained AI models for cash. Future clinicians are teaching the machines to afford the bedside.
• 10% have pursued sperm or egg donation.
• Among income sources, content creation pays best: more students named it their biggest moneymaker (16%) than sports betting (14%) or prediction markets (11%).

A career that feels out of reach. Students were stretched thin before the caps; July 1 raised the stakes.

• More than 6 in 10 (61%) say becoming a healthcare professional without family wealth or outside support is either extremely difficult (47%) or not realistically achievable (14%).
• Nearly 3 in 10 (29%) cannot reliably cover a month's basic expenses.

And they're staying anyway.  

• 66% of respondents chose healthcare to help people; just 6% chose it for salary. 
• Only 3% are reconsidering their career because of the loan caps, and 1 in 3 say the caps make them more committed.

"Nursing is supposed to be the career that holds when everything else gets automated away, and we've made it harder to finance than law school," said Tess Michaels, CEO of Clasp. “These students aren't betting for fun. They're budgeting winnings into their tuition plans, and most of them are barely breaking even. What struck me most is that they're staying anyway. The commitment isn't the problem. The financing is. That's what has to change if we expect a nurse at the bedside five years from now.”

Survey Methodology

Clasp surveyed 1,000 U.S. healthcare students via Pollfish June 16-28, ahead of the July 1 implementation of new federal graduate loan caps. Respondents were 81% female and 84% under age 36% were nursing students, 19% were allied health students, and 23% were enrolled in other healthcare programs.