VIA：@systematicls
本文为X上一位用户名为“sysls”的博主，在他的个人主页上，他自称是一位企业家，也曾在所有最大的对冲基金里，成功管理过系统性投资的经验。
近日，他在自己的主页上，分享了自己创作的一篇文章，揭秘为何在金融交易中，高风险投机反倒成了理性的选择。
前言
我不是选股专家。我崇拜的是大范围的低信心（胜率≤53%）投注，但我绝对相信，长期衰退将是下个世纪普遍存在的社会经济主题。
这就是为什么 40 岁以上的人会建议你努力提升工作能力，增加收入，而其他人似乎都忽略了这一点，拼命地抓住任何能让他们获得巨大成功的机会。
向这样的群体兜售最容易的东西就是“希望”，当你理解了这一点，你就会理解赌场（各种形式，交易所、预测市场等等）的兴起，以及交易大师、商业大师、课程，当然还有……子版块的兴起。
准备工作
一个人无需被关进监狱才会被囚禁。有一代人生活在无形的牢笼之中。
他们知道那种生活是存在的：房子、稳定的生活，以及三十年来坚持做正确的事所带来的回报。他们知道有人拥有这一切。他们只是无法想象如何才能达到那种境界。不是“很难”，而是他们根本无法构建一条从现在的位置到他们应该到达的终点的切实可行的路径。
传统的财富积累之路已经封闭。不是困难，而是彻底封闭。当婴儿潮一代仅占人口的20%却掌握着约50%的国民财富，而千禧一代人口比例相同却只占约10%时，这便暴露出这套财富积累机制从根本上已经失效。
梯子被抽走了，这并非婴儿潮一代的本意；资产价格上涨只是恰好让那些已经拥有资产的人受益。但结果是一样的。
传统契约的崩溃
过去，潜规则很简单：按时上班，努力工作，保持忠诚，就会得到回报。公司提供养老金。工龄很重要。你的房子在你睡觉的时候也在升值。只要你信任这套体系，它就能正常运转。
那笔交易告吹了。
在一家公司待上20年如今已不再是优势，反而成了职业生涯的负担。工资增长了8%，而住房成本却翻了一番，年轻人的债务支出增加了约33%。这样的形势已经不再支持继续保持耐心了。
从更宏观的角度来看，我以前认为情况很糟糕，但随着人工智能的出现及其将带来的经济影响（即使是以现有技术而言），我认为情况只会变得更加糟糕。
当制度不再奖励耐心时，人们也就不再有耐心了。
可以称之为理性适应。
推拉
这里有两种力量在起作用。
拉力
现代社会基本解决了马斯洛需求层次理论中最底层的问题。食物价格低廉，基本住所也已具备。安全、医疗和基本就业虽然不能完全保障，但已基本到位，大多数年轻人无需为生存而挣扎。
前几代人面临经济困境时，他们面临的是另一种问题。当你为温饱发愁时，你根本无暇顾及存在的意义。埋头苦干是可以理解的，因为除此之外别无选择，只能饿死。你选择一份稳定的工作，保持沉默，不惹是生非——因为这份工作能让你活下去。
这一代人没有那种干扰。
当生存问题得到解决后，人们便会追求更高层次的需求：归属感、尊重和自我实现。他们渴望体验，渴望意义，渴望感受到自己的人生并非只是停滞不前，而是在不断向前发展。然而，通往这些更高层次需求的传统途径——拥有住房、职业晋升和经济保障——恰恰是被阻碍的。
从整体上看，我们就像猿猴一样，本能地抓挠着我们更高层次的自我实现需求的伤疤，鲜血不停地流淌，但我们却真的不知道如何做得更好。
推动力（以及为何情况越来越糟）
人工智能正在蚕食白领工作，这是人尽皆知的事实。
这种焦虑不再是假设性的了。ChatGPT 的文案水平比大多数初级营销人员都高。Midjourney 的视觉效果比入门级设计师还要好。Cursor 和 Claude 编写的代码能够通过审查。除了那些技能严重不足的人之外，这几乎已被普遍接受。
每个月都会出现新的基准，表明人工智能在某些任务上的表现已经达到甚至超过了人类，而这些任务以前需要昂贵的学位和多年的训练才能完成。
白领们，或者说那些对经济状况有较高追求的人，都在密切关注着人工智能取代知识型员工的时间表不断缩短。三年前，“人工智能将取代知识型员工”还只是一个设想，如今却已成为一项规划假设。人们不再问“是否会发生”，而是问“何时会发生”，而预测的时间也越来越短。
还有社交媒体，它让你永远不会对现状感到满意。
该算法经过优化，旨在向您展示未来可能拥有的一切。永远是您尚未实现的假期，永远是您买不起的公寓，永远是您目前生活方式之上的另一种选择。无论您身处人生阶梯的哪个位置，总有人比您更优秀，而算法会找到他们。
前几代人对别人的生活方式了解有限。他们会拿自己和邻居、同事，或许还有杂志上的一些名人作比较。参照群体很窄。而现在，参照群体无限广阔。一个年收入7万美元的25岁年轻人，不断被同龄人的生活信息所包围，这些人年收入200万美元，住在巴厘岛，每天“工作”4个小时。“足够”的标准也在不断变化。
你永远追不上。无论你取得了怎样的成就，社交媒体都会让你看到你错过了什么。你的生活与你“应该”拥有的生活之间的差距，由算法维持，永远无法弥合。
人工智能缩短了你的时间线，社交媒体又让你永远感觉不到自己已经功成名就。这种想要立刻逃离、尽快摆脱、以免为时已晚的压力，每天都在加剧。
这种焦虑无处不在。每个白领都曾有过这样的心理思考：“人工智能能取代我的工作吗？什么时候能？”而且大多数人都不喜欢自己的答案。即使他们现在觉得暂时安全，但“暂时”这个时间却越来越短。
所以，现在这一代人既负担不起传统的人生里程碑，又认为即便走上这条路，在到达终点之前，这条路也可能就此消失。趁着现在还有钱和机会，放手一搏才是理性的应对之策。
为什么要苦苦奋斗20年，去争取10年后可能根本不存在的晋升机会？
马斯洛陷阱
当你能够生存却无法取得任何进展时，某些环节就会出现问题。你还没到绝望到接受任何交易的地步，但你却被真正重要的交易拒之门外。原本用于生存的认知资源，现在却被用于……挫败感。用于寻找。用于寻找任何可能通往未来的道路。
职业发展不仅仅意味着收入，更意味着目标、身份认同，以及工作意义感。财务保障不仅仅意味着金钱，更意味着拥有承担风险、旅行、建设和创造的自由。
当这些出路都已关闭，而且实现目标的期限也越来越短时，压力必须转移到其他地方。这些囚犯需要一条出路，而且他们现在就需要一条出路。
赌场代理
我最初是在L1加密货币领域看到这种现象的，当时觉得它只是一时的风潮。后来我在NFT领域再次看到它，之后又在NFT和恶意交易平台之间的一系列混乱局面中一次又一次地看到它，而现在，显然又出现了所谓的“预测市场超级周期”。
那些无法想象在一家公司苦苦挣扎的年轻人，却会毫不犹豫地花几个月时间学习加密货币交易。他们会投入大量时间研究预测市场，以期了解他们深信已被操纵的经济体系。那些将传统投资斥为“内幕交易”的人，却会把房租都押在一种“模因币”上。
为什么？
因为赌场是他们唯一能感受到掌控感的地方。也是唯一能让他们的决定真正解锁下一阶段，并在关键时刻发挥作用的地方。
传统职业道路？你的经理是因为资历最老才升职的，而不是因为能力强，而且你的整个部门可能最终都会被自动化取代。股市？当然，假设你的工作还在，你或许能每年赚10%，47年后买得起房子。
但加密货币呢？预测市场呢？体育博彩呢？在这里，你的研究至关重要。信念会带来回报。即使是想象中的优势，也感觉像是自己拥有的，而不是等待别人赋予你的。你下注时，你的判断将直接决定结果。
庄家优势是存在的。大多数人都会输。我认为大多数人都明白这一点。但他们是在赌博，而不是在等待一个可能永远不会到来的未来。那些鼓吹人们停止赌博的人，并没有理解赌徒们的困境，总是自以为是地认为“你们拥有负优势”。我的观点是，我认为赌徒们完全明白这一点。
那些说“赌博不好，你应该戒赌”的人，几乎都是那些身处经济上层阶级、享有特权的人。他们看到了出路，看到了前进的方向。所以，他们鼓吹上帝会眷顾他们，鼓励他们坚持走这条路。
对许多身陷囹圄的人来说，赌博是他们的救赎，而你实际上是在劝他们接受永世的诅咒。这就是他们反抗你的原因。这就是为什么你出于好意的劝告对他们来说如同耳旁风。
具体数字如何？
预测市场：Polymarket 和 Kalshi 仅在 2025 年 11 月的交易量就超过 100 亿美元。两家公司年交易量合计接近 400 亿美元。而 2020 年，这一数字几乎为零。增长率呈垂直上升趋势。
体育博彩：合法体育博彩收入从2017年的2.48亿美元增长到2024年的137亿美元。Z世代和千禧一代占博彩活动的76%。这两个群体在在线体育博彩网站上的活动量同比增长了7%。
TransUnion的报告将这些赌徒定义为“投机者”：他们是城市租房者，加密货币应用程序的重度用户，集中在移动交易平台上。这些年轻人被传统的财富积累方式拒之门外，只能在唯一能提供这种回报的市场中寻求不对称收益。
经济理论支持这一点。
当你身陷困境时，你的风险偏好会发生改变。
经济学家称之为“亏损中的凸效用”：当你已经亏损时，你宁愿选择挽回局面的较小概率，也不愿接受一定程度的损失。这与人们在二十一点游戏中落后时选择加倍下注的原因相同。这也是为什么彩票在贫困社区更畅销的原因。
我的看法是，社交媒体和我们更高层次的需求，让那些经济地位远低于上层阶级的人们，觉得自己已经处于一种匮乏的状态。贫困线被重新定义了。这就是为什么你会看到有人一本正经地谈论15万美元的贫困线。这一代人不再是为了生存而冒险，而是为了拥有真正的人生而冒险。
当你的基本需求得到满足，但更高层次的需求却受阻时，金钱不再关乎安全，而是关乎获取途径。获取体验的途径。获取自由的途径。获取那些你看得见却无法触及的生活的途径。房子不仅仅是遮风避雨的地方；它让你拥有扎根的土壤，建立社群，感受到自己像个成年人。旅行并非奢侈；它是一种体验，让生命充满意义。
对于看不到通过传统途径实现这些目标的一代人来说，冒险的预期价值似乎比苦苦挣扎的预期价值更有吸引力。如果你的底线是“永远原地踏步”，那么即使只有5%的逃脱几率，也比100%的停滞不前更有吸引力。
这并非金融知识匮乏，而是受限条件下的显性偏好。
那些沉迷于模因币的赌徒、体育博彩爱好者、预测市场狂热者、交易大师的订阅者：他们明白赔率很低。他们也明白还有其他选择。当你的选择要么“肯定没戏”，要么“可能没戏但有很小的可能”，那么第二个选择总是更胜一筹。
长期退化
那么：你会买什么？
如果这种诊断是正确的，即经济上被拒之门外的一代年轻人将继续通过高波动性的金融产品寻求自主权，那么你应该做多任何满足这种需求的股票。
平台盈利与用户输赢无关。你寻找的是那些不在乎你是否赢钱或预测是否正确的平台。你寻找的是那些从用户活动中抽取费用的企业，而用户活动正在不断增长。
创业：这个“逃离朝九晚五”的产业体系规模庞大且仍在不断扩张。课程创建者兜售代发货教程，教练推销代理模式，大师们兜售“我是如何月入十万美元的”秘籍。“自己创业”已经成了社会认可的“中奖彩票” ；它让人感觉富有成效、充满成就感，仿佛你在创造某种东西。大多数创业者失败的事实并不会像彩票中奖概率低那样抑制市场需求。
预测市场：Polymarket 的估值在 80 亿至 100 亿美元之间。据业内人士透露，其总市场规模（TAM）相当于“整个博彩行业”，超过万亿美元。即使这个数字乐观估计了 90%，仍然是一个规模庞大的市场。
加密货币基础设施：托管、交易、质押、借贷。每一波新的投机者都需要入口。Coinbase、Robinhood 的加密货币部门、专业交易所；无论交易方向如何，它们都能从交易量中获益。
体育博彩运营商：DraftKings、FanDuel及其基础设施提供商。合法体育博彩仍在各州逐步推行，监管壁垒依然存在。
社交交易和社群：Discord 服务器、X/Twitter 账号、面向该受众的 Substack 新闻简报。关注度很高，付费获取早期内容的意愿也很高。
赌注并非押注某个投机者会赢，而是押注这种现象会持续下去。押注驱使年轻人进行高风险赌博的潜在经济条件不会改变。押注从这种活动中抽取佣金的平台会随着用户群体的扩大而继续发展壮大。押注那些身陷经济困境的人会一次又一次地下注，就像西斯皮胡斯填写他的第401张彩票一样。
考虑到我们对人工智能加速发展、住房成本、财富分配和代际经济学的了解……这看起来像是暂时的现象吗？
道德层面
请注意，本论文是描述性的，而不是规范性的。
看着一代人试图通过彩票，哪怕是复杂的彩票，来寻求经济上的救赎，这并非值得庆贺之事。预测市场和网络货币似乎成了获得掌控感的唯一途径，这恰恰反映了社会的某种弊病。庄家赢了，大多数玩家输了。
但了解正在发生的事情能让你做好准备，让你反思，让你决定是否要参与其中。如果决定参与，你应该睁大眼睛，全力以赴，在你拥有优势的领域下注。
各个时代的赌场都从绝望中牟利。如今的绝望情绪真实存在，有据可查，而且还在不断加剧。这些赌场包括Hope Sellers、Polymarket、Coinbase和DraftKings。他们会继续抽取佣金。
你可以对此进行道德评判，也可以继续持有这些平台的股票。说真的，这确实是你可以退出的途径之一。或者你也可以选择成为赌徒，如果你这么做了，最好确保自己有足够的实力。
很好。因为这不是游戏，我们谈论的是你的人生。如果你要拿自己的灵魂做赌注，就必须尽一切可能确保自己获胜。
结论
我留给你一个故事……
我认识一个人，聪明，在科技行业工作，收入按任何历史标准来看都相当不错。上个月他“投资”了10万美元去刷perp dex点数。并不是因为他觉得这是一笔好投资。
因为，我引用一下他的原话：“不然我还能怎么办，攒20年钱，等到55岁再买套公寓吗？”
我知道他肯定在等下一次图鉴更新，然后他还会再来一次。
长期退化。
注：以上为机翻，英文版全文如下：
The Prison Of Financial Mediocrity
Introduction
I am not a stock picker. I worship at the altar of a large breadth of low confidence (<= 53% win-rate) bets, but I am absolutely betting the house that long degeneracy is the prevalent socioeconomic theme of the coming century.
It is why people above the age of 40 will recommend you to get better at your job and increase your salary, whilst everyone else seem to be ignoring exactly THAT and desperately clawing at something, ANYTHING that can give them a shot of outrageous success.
The easiest thing to sell to a crowd like this is "hope", and when you understand this, you will understand the rise of the casinos (in all forms, dexes, prediction markets, etc) and the rise of trading gurus, business gurus, courses, and of course... substacks.
The Set-up
One doesn't need to be locked up to be imprisoned. There is a generation walking around with invisible bars.
They know the life exists, the house, the stability, the reward for showing up and doing the right thing for thirty years. They know people have it. They just can't imagine how to get there. Not "it's hard"; they literally cannot construct a realistic path from where they are to where they're supposed to end up.
The traditional path to wealth accumulation is closed. Not difficult. Closed. When boomers hold ~50% of national wealth while comprising 20% of the population, and millennials hold ~10% despite being the same share, the game reveals itself to be fundamentally broken.
The ladder got pulled up and it's not like the boomers wanted to do this; asset price inflation just happened to benefit those who already owned assets. But the effect is the same.
The Collapse of the Traditional Bargain
The implicit deal used to be simple: show up, work hard, stay loyal, and you'll be rewarded. Companies offered pensions. Tenure meant something. Your house appreciated while you slept. The system worked if you trusted it.
That deal is dead.
Staying at one company for 20 years is now a career liability, not an asset. Wages grew 8% while housing costs doubled and debt payments for young people increased ~33%. The math doesn't support patience anymore.
Looking at the bigger picture, I used to think it was bad, but with the advent of AI and the economic impact they are going to have (even with current technologies), I think it is only going to get significantly worst.
When the system stops rewarding patience, people stop being patient.
Call it rational adaptation.
Push And Pull
Two forces are at work here.
The Pull
Modern society has mostly solved the bottom tiers of Maslow's hierarchy. Food is cheap. Basic shelter exists. Safety, healthcare, baseline employment, not guaranteed, but accessible enough that most young people aren't fighting for survival.
Previous generations facing economic constraint had a different problem. When you're worried about eating, you don't have bandwidth for existential questions. The grind makes sense because the alternative is starvation. You take the stable job, you stay quiet, you don't rock the boat - because the boat is keeping you alive.
This generation doesn't have that distraction.
When survival is handled, humans reach for the next tier: belonging, esteem, self-actualization. They want experiences. They want meaning. They want to feel like their life is going somewhere, not just continuing. And the traditional paths to those higher needs, home ownership, career progression, financial security, are exactly what's been blocked.
Collectively, we are apes that are reflexively scratching at the scab of our higher order needs of actualization, and the blood won't stop flowing but we literally don't know how to do better.
The Push (and Why It's Getting Worse)
AI is coming for white-collar jobs, and everyone knows it.
The anxiety isn't hypothetical anymore. ChatGPT writes better copy than most junior marketers. Midjourney produces better visuals than entry-level designers. Cursor and Claude write code that passes review. This is now more or less universally accepted except by those with severe skill issues.
Every month brings new benchmarks showing AI matching or exceeding human performance on tasks that used to require expensive degrees and years of training.
White-collar workers, or otherwise the financially aspirational, are watching the timeline shrink. Three years ago, "AI will replace knowledge workers" was a thought experiment. Now it's a planning assumption. Everyone's asking when, not if, and the estimates keep getting shorter.
Then there's social media, which ensures you're never satisfied with where you are.
The algorithm is optimized to show you the next tranche of what could be. Always the vacation you haven't taken. The apartment you can't afford. The lifestyle one rung above yours. It doesn't matter where you are on the ladder; there's always someone above you, and the algorithm will find them.
Previous generations had limited visibility into how others lived. You compared yourself to your neighbors, your coworkers, maybe some celebrities in magazines. The reference class was narrow. Now the reference class is infinite. A 25-year-old making $70k is constantly fed content from people their age making $2mn, living in Bali, "working" four hours a day. The baseline for "enough" keeps moving.
You never catch up. No matter what you achieve, social media will show you what you're missing. The spread between your life and the life you "should" have is maintained algorithmically, forever uncollapsible.
So you have AI shrinking your timeline AND social media ensuring you never feel like you've arrived. The pressure to escape, NOW, FAST, before it's too late, compounds daily.
The anxiety is pervasive. Every white-collar worker has done the mental exercise: "Could AI do my job? When?" And most of them don't love their answers. Even if they think they're safe for now, "for now" keeps getting shorter.
So you have a generation that can't afford the traditional milestones AND believes the traditional path might evaporate before they reach the destination anyway. Taking shots now, while the money and the opportunity still exist, is the rational response.
Why grind for 20 years toward a promotion that might not exist in 10?
The Maslow Trap
When you can survive but can't get anywhere, something breaks. You're not desperate enough to accept any deal, but you're blocked from the deals that actually matter. The cognitive bandwidth that would have gone to survival instead goes to... frustration. Searching. Looking for any path that might lead somewhere.
Career progression isn't just income, it's purpose, identity, the feeling that your work matters. Financial security isn't just money, it's the freedom to take risks, travel, build, create.
When these paths close AND the timeline to achieve them shrinks, the pressure has to go somewhere. These prisoners need a way out, and BY GOD they need a way out NOW.
Agency In The Casino
I first saw it in the L1 Crypto; and dismissed it as a fad. Then I saw it again in NFTs, and then again and again in the entire shit show between NFTs and perp dexes and now, obviously, the "prediction markets supercycle".
The same young people who can't imagine grinding at one company will absolutely grind for months learning crypto trading. They will pour hours into understanding prediction markets to understand the very economy they believe wholeheartedly to be rigged. The same person who dismisses traditional investing as an "inside game" will bet their rent money on a memecoin.
Why?
Because the casino is the only place they feel agency. The only place where their decisions might actually unlock the next tier, on a timeline that matters.
Traditional career path? Your manager got promoted for being there first, not for being good, and your whole department might get automated anyway. Stock market? Sure, you can earn 10% annually and afford a house in 47 years, assuming your job still exists.
But crypto? Prediction markets? Sports betting? Your research actually matters here. Conviction pays. Even an imagined edge feels like yours, not something you're waiting for someone to grant you. You're placing bets where your judgment directly determines your results.
The house edge exists. Most people lose. I think MOST PEOPLE understand this. But they're playing, not waiting for a future that might never arrive. The people preaching for these people to STOP GAMBLING have failed to understand the predicament of the prisoners, and always assume a kind of intellectual superiority that "you have negative edge". My position is that I think the gamblers absolutely understand that.
The ones who say "gambling is bad, you should stop" are almost always the ones speaking from a privileged position of being in the financial upper class. They SEE a way out; they SEE a path. So they espouse the goodness and kindness of god on staying the path.
For the many imprisoned, gambling is their salvation, and you are literally telling them to accept a life of eternal damnation. That is why they rebel against you. That is why your well-intentioned advice falls on deaf ears.
What Do The Numbers Look Like?
Prediction Markets: Polymarket and Kalshi did $10B+ in volume in November 2025 alone. Combined annual volume is approaching $40B. In 2020 this was essentially zero. The growth rate is vertical.
Sports Betting: Legal sports betting revenue went from $248M in 2017 to $13.7B in 2024. Gen Z and Millennials account for 76% of betting activity. Activity on online sportsbooks rose 7% year-over-year for both cohorts.
TransUnion's report identified these gamblers as "speculators": urban renters, heavy users of crypto apps, concentrated in mobile trading platforms. Young people locked out of traditional wealth-building, seeking asymmetric payoffs in the only markets that offer them.
Economic Theory Supports This
When you're trapped, your risk preferences change.
Economists call this "convex utility in losses": when you're already losing, you prefer a small chance of getting back to even over a certain moderate loss. It's the same reason people double down at blackjack when they're behind. It's why lottery tickets sell better in poor neighborhoods.
My take is that social media and our higher order needs have conditioned people that are positioned well below the financial upper class to feel like they are already at a loss. The zeroth line has been repositioned. It is why you see unironic takes about the poverty line being at $150k. This generation isn't gambling to survive, they're gambling to actually have a life.
When your basic needs are met but your higher needs are blocked, money stops being about security and starts being about access. Access to experiences. Access to freedom. Access to the life you can see but can't reach. A house isn't just shelter; it's the ability to have roots, build community, feel like an adult. Travel isn't luxury; it's the experience that makes life feel worth living.
For a generation that sees no realistic path to these things through conventional means, the expected value of a moonshot starts looking better than the expected value of grinding. If your baseline is "treading water forever," then a PERCEIVED 5% chance of escaping is mathematically attractive against a 100% chance of staying stuck.
This isn't financial illiteracy. It is revealed preference under constraint.
The memecoin degens, the sports bettors, the prediction market junkies, the trading guru subscriboors: they understand the odds are bad. They also understand their alternatives. When your options are "definitely stuck" or "probably stuck but with a small chance of being not," the second option wins every time.
Long Degeneracy
So: what do you buy?
If this diagnosis is right, that a generation of economically locked-out young people will continue seeking agency through high-variance financial products, then you want to be long anything that serves that demand.
The platforms win regardless of whether the users win. You are looking for platforms that doesn't care if you win your bet or if your prediction is right. You are looking for businesses that extract fees from activity, and activity is growing.
Entrepreneurship: The 'escape the 9-5' industrial complex is enormous and growing. Course creators selling dropshipping tutorials. Coaches selling agency models. Gurus selling 'how I made $100k/month' playbooks. 'Start your own business' is already the socially acceptable lottery ticket; it feels productive, agentic, like you're building something. The fact that most entrepreneurs fail doesn't dampen demand any more than bad odds dampen lottery sales.
Prediction markets: Polymarket is raising at an $8-10B valuation. The combined TAM people cite is "the entire betting industry," over a trillion dollars. Even if that's optimistic by 90%, it's a massive market.
Crypto infrastructure: Custody, trading, staking, lending. Every new wave of speculators needs on-ramps. Coinbase, Robinhood's crypto arm, specialized exchanges; they all benefit from volume regardless of direction.
Sports betting operators: DraftKings, FanDuel, and their infrastructure providers. Legal sports betting is still rolling out state by state. The regulatory moat is real.
Social trading and community: Discord servers, X/Twitter accounts, Substack newsletters that cater to this audience. The attention is there. The willingness to pay for alpha is there.
The bet isn't that any individual speculator wins. The bet is that the phenomenon persists. That the underlying economic conditions driving young people toward high-variance bets don't change. That the platforms extracting fees from this activity continue to grow with the audience. That the financially imprisoned will parlay one bet to another, to another, to another, one must imagine Sispyhus filling out his 401st lottery ticket.
Given what we know about AI acceleration, housing costs, wealth distribution, and generational economics... does this seem like a temporary thing?
The Moral Dimension
Look, this thesis is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Watching a generation seek financial salvation through lottery tickets, even sophisticated lottery tickets, isn't something to celebrate. The fact that prediction markets and memecoins feel like the only path to agency is a symptom of something broken. The house wins. Most players lose.
But understanding what's happening lets you position for it. Let's you reflect on it. Let's you decide if you want to be a part of it. IF you do, you should step into this with both eyes open, and bet where you have an edge.
The casinos of every era have profited from desperation. The desperation today is real, documented, and growing. The casinos are The Hope Sellers, Polymarket, Coinbase, DraftKings. They're going to keep taking rake.
You can moralize about this or you can be long the platforms. It is unironically one of the ways you CAN get out. Or you can be on the gamblers, and if you are, you better be good.
Very good. Because this is not a game. This is your life we are talking about. If you are going to wager with your soul on the line, you need to give yourself the best chance that you can win.
Conclusion
I leave you a story...
There's a guy I know, smart, works in tech, makes good money by any historical standard. Last month he "invested" $100k farming perp dex points. Not because he thought it was a good investment.
Because, and I quote: "What else am I gonna do, save for 20 years and buy a condo when I'm 55?"
I just know he's waiting for the next dex to come around so he'll do it again.
Long degeneracy.
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