Magic: The Gathering revenue surge points to millennial spending split

Magic: The Gathering revenue reached $1.72 billion in 2025, the strongest year in the card game’s three-decade history, according to Yahoo Finance. Gamesmarket.Global reported that the 59% increase made Magic Hasbro’s leading profit driver, while The Wall Street Journal’s Natasha Khan noted the rise came as doll sales moved sharply lower.

The shift matters beyond Hasbro’s results because it lines up with broader data on how many younger adults are spending. A game that began as a teenage hobby is now drawing adult money at the same time that housing, family formation and children’s products are under pressure.

Why is Magic: The Gathering revenue rising?

The simplest explanation is that adults who grew up with the game are still buying it. But housing and wealth data cited by Fortune point to a larger pattern: many younger millennials are earning paychecks while delaying the purchases and life stages that earlier generations reached sooner.

New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, described by Fortune, says the usual U.S. homeownership rate overstates how many adults own property. Economist Erik Hembre and co-authors Benjamin Horowitz and Maxine Xu used a homeowners-to-population measure and found the national rate was closer to 53%, rather than the widely cited 65%.

For adults under 35, the gap was wider. The standard measure put 2024 homeownership at 37%, while the Minneapolis Fed measure put it at 22%, because the older method counts household heads rather than individual adults. The researchers found that 13.9% of U.S. adults live in owner-occupied homes without owning them, including 9% who live in a home owned by a parent.

The National Association of Realtors now separates millennials into older and younger groups because their housing situations differ so much, deputy chief economist Jessica Lautz told Fortune. Older millennials, ages 36 to 45, have become a high-earning and high-spending buyer group, with median household income of $132,700. Younger millennials, ages 27 to 35, are buying smaller homes and making median down payments of 9%, compared with 13% for older millennials and at least 26% for boomers.

Fortune also cited data showing a record 25.2 million adults under 35 lived with their parents in 2025, close to one in three. About 70% were employed, and many had college degrees. The national median home listing price was $430,000, more than 34% above 2019 levels.

That split is visible in wealth figures. CNBC reported that millennials’ total net worth rose from $3.94 trillion in 2019 to $15.95 trillion by late 2024, but Fortune noted that about $2.5 trillion of the gain came from rising home values, benefiting owners more than renters. Younger millennials also reported heavier student debt: 39% had loans with a median balance of $30,000, compared with 27% of older millennials.

Toy sales show the same divide. The Wall Street Journal, citing Circana, reported that doll sales fell 36% from 2021 to 2025, while toddler and preschool toy sales dropped 15%. At the same time, Magic grew quickly, including strong demand for Secret Lair collector products, according to Gamesmarket.Global.

Adults are now a major toy market on their own. Empower reported that adults account for about $6.7 billion in annual U.S. toy spending, up 8% from a year earlier, even as the overall toy market declines. CivicScience surveys cited by Fortune identified nostalgia as the main driver for adult toy buying.

The result is a consumer split: older millennials with housing wealth are spending more like prior generations, while younger adults are putting smaller sums into collectibles, games and familiar entertainment. Magic’s record year gives Hasbro a business win, but it also reflects how adulthood has become more expensive to enter.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.