<story><title>To make a fortune, target bored young men who want to make a fortune</title><url>https://www.businessinsider.com/gambling-young-men-sports-betting-crypto-meme-stock-market-addiction-2024-4</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mycologos</author><text>In my limited experience as somebody whose friends and family are all pretty well educated and pretty well off (for better or for worse, I work at a big tech company), gambling seems pretty class-specific.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know anybody who gambles, on betting or crypto, and only a small number who even pick individual stocks. Some people play poker, but only for nominal sums, and it&amp;#x27;s usually presented as more of an intellectual exercise. I get the sense that if somebody said they like sports betting, it would produce a half-second awkward glitch in a conversation. I doubt anybody would moralize, but there might be an unspoken question like &amp;quot;[you gamble? don&amp;#x27;t you have more fulfilling things to do?]&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The simple answer here is probably that if you already have enough money then you don&amp;#x27;t need to gamble, but it&amp;#x27;s not like most people who gamble actually believe it&amp;#x27;s the path to profit, it seems like there&amp;#x27;s something else here where gambling is viewed as low-status (in my bubble).</text></item><item><author>jjice</author><text>As a mid-twenties man, I see this constantly among my friends.&lt;p&gt;It started a few years ago when sports betting was legalized in my home state and when I was at a bar before Thanksgiving to see some friends, half of them were watching a basketball game involving teams they&amp;#x27;ve never cared about. They showed me that they were betting some wild parlays to hit on this game they had no interest in watching otherwise. They showed me that the apps keep track of your net earnings (I assume this is a legal requirement) and _all_ of them were in the negative between $400 and $800. Keep in mind that these are young men who just graduated college and we were all pretty broke.&lt;p&gt;Flash forward, a lot of them still sports bet regularly with regular losses. I live in a different state now, but a group of my friends around here recently go into going to a casino near by. I was blown away by the justifications on their gambling habits. &amp;quot;I usually win&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I only gamble what I come in with&amp;quot;, but the latter isn&amp;#x27;t true and I&amp;#x27;ve seen it with my own eyes. I met up with them (not to gamble, but to see a friend), and thirty minutes in one of them was asking the other for $40 so he could &amp;quot;win it all back&amp;quot; at the roulette table.&lt;p&gt;It blows my mind. We know so well that gambling is a losing battle. Some can have fun and call it the price of fun, but it&amp;#x27;s such a slippery slope to find yourself losing way more than you intended.&lt;p&gt;Anecdotally, I notice that the women in my life gamble less.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bwing1</author><text>Yeah, that&amp;#x27;s bubble-specific, not class-specific. I think the most successful of the younger professionals I know are most likely to gamble on sports -- it&amp;#x27;s an excuse for an active group chat, it&amp;#x27;s something to talk with random people about, and the actual amounts you bet are easy to make trivial relative to income. Very networking-forward hobby. (Also, it&amp;#x27;s obviously as much an intellectual exercise to gamble on sports as it is to play poker.)&lt;p&gt;Broadly, though sports in particular is something different bubbles care more or less about, I&amp;#x27;d say your perspective is entirely foreign to me. My experience is that the more intelligent groups I&amp;#x27;m around are vastly more interested in predicting things and putting money behind their predictions.</text></comment>
<story><title>To make a fortune, target bored young men who want to make a fortune</title><url>https://www.businessinsider.com/gambling-young-men-sports-betting-crypto-meme-stock-market-addiction-2024-4</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mycologos</author><text>In my limited experience as somebody whose friends and family are all pretty well educated and pretty well off (for better or for worse, I work at a big tech company), gambling seems pretty class-specific.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know anybody who gambles, on betting or crypto, and only a small number who even pick individual stocks. Some people play poker, but only for nominal sums, and it&amp;#x27;s usually presented as more of an intellectual exercise. I get the sense that if somebody said they like sports betting, it would produce a half-second awkward glitch in a conversation. I doubt anybody would moralize, but there might be an unspoken question like &amp;quot;[you gamble? don&amp;#x27;t you have more fulfilling things to do?]&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The simple answer here is probably that if you already have enough money then you don&amp;#x27;t need to gamble, but it&amp;#x27;s not like most people who gamble actually believe it&amp;#x27;s the path to profit, it seems like there&amp;#x27;s something else here where gambling is viewed as low-status (in my bubble).</text></item><item><author>jjice</author><text>As a mid-twenties man, I see this constantly among my friends.&lt;p&gt;It started a few years ago when sports betting was legalized in my home state and when I was at a bar before Thanksgiving to see some friends, half of them were watching a basketball game involving teams they&amp;#x27;ve never cared about. They showed me that they were betting some wild parlays to hit on this game they had no interest in watching otherwise. They showed me that the apps keep track of your net earnings (I assume this is a legal requirement) and _all_ of them were in the negative between $400 and $800. Keep in mind that these are young men who just graduated college and we were all pretty broke.&lt;p&gt;Flash forward, a lot of them still sports bet regularly with regular losses. I live in a different state now, but a group of my friends around here recently go into going to a casino near by. I was blown away by the justifications on their gambling habits. &amp;quot;I usually win&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I only gamble what I come in with&amp;quot;, but the latter isn&amp;#x27;t true and I&amp;#x27;ve seen it with my own eyes. I met up with them (not to gamble, but to see a friend), and thirty minutes in one of them was asking the other for $40 so he could &amp;quot;win it all back&amp;quot; at the roulette table.&lt;p&gt;It blows my mind. We know so well that gambling is a losing battle. Some can have fun and call it the price of fun, but it&amp;#x27;s such a slippery slope to find yourself losing way more than you intended.&lt;p&gt;Anecdotally, I notice that the women in my life gamble less.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>psunavy03</author><text>Investing in stocks != gambling.  The market is not a casino.</text></comment>