Something I’ve been thinking of recently is the sudden, and embarrassingly massive, rise of online gambling apps. I cannot stress enough how much of an issue this is going to be moving forward.
The most glaring issue, IMO, is how these gambling apps are targeting the most irresponsible and dangerous group when it comes to financial responsibility, teenagers and young adults. I want to be super clear here and try and avoid sounding like “old man yells at cloud”. If you are in that age range, the reason you’re probably not financially responsible isn’t because you’re an idiot, it’s because you probably don’t have the experience of managing your finances. Yes, there is large amount of much older folk who are also financially responsible as well. But if you’re in that 18-30 age range, messing up your credit and getting into a gambling addiction will screw you over big time in the later years of your life. Bad credit is easy to accrue and monstrously hard to get away from.
Unlike other damaging addictions: smoking, drinking, drug use, gambling isn’t one that, at least in the US, is warned against nearly as much when you’re younger. Just like anything, the key is moderation. If you and your buddies have a work-pool on the next election or the World Series, then fine! You have a poker night or mahjong group that meets every few weeks? Also no problem. But if you’re opening an app to gamble on every sports game and (checks notes) celebrity deaths, Rotten Tomatoes score, the WAR IN UKRAINE AND GAZA, then you are wading into a very very bad surf.
This is the same warning I would give a fresh faced, 18 YO in one of my classes in regard to credit cards as well. My fiancée, who I love dearly, was not responsible with her credit cards at your age and now, almost a decade later, she is still making interest payments. If you combine that with a ridiculously easy-accessed app that you can open up at any point in time, to gamble on just about anything you can think of, you’re essentially fixing bayonets and waiting for the whistle to go over the top! Only your bayonet is made of cheap plastic and the Kalshi Empire is fielding gatling lasers and MQ-9 Reaper Drones.
