\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
![](\"https:\/\/lostcoastoutpost.com\/loco-media\/loco-media\/blog\/post\/44043\/1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nConsequently,
\nit\u2019s not just sports betting that is on the rise. You can now put
\nmoney on politics, policies, and cultural moments like who will win
\nBest Picture or how many times Elon Musk will tweet via Polymarket.
\n<\/p>\n
All
\nthis legal wagering is becoming a problem for some. Though not all
\ngamblers are addicts, some are enslaved to it. The National Problem
\nGambling Helpline has spiked in comparison to where it was just a few
\nyears ago2, and more and more Americans view it as a
\ngrowing problem and bad for society.3<\/p>\n
Economist
I
Let\u2019s
One
As a
Dopamine
In
Long-term
Resilience
I\u2019m
That
While
This
Investors
Durability
If
How
You
Dr.
Nothing
But
Durability
Invest
You
###<\/p>\n Sources:<\/p>\n 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
# # #<\/p>\n Brandon Stockman has been a Wealth Advisor licensed with the Series 7 and 66 since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. He has the privilege of helping manage accounts throughout the United States and works in the Fortuna office of\u00a0Johnson Wealth Management<\/a>. You can\u00a0sign up for his weekly newsletter<\/a>\u00a0on investing and financial education or\u00a0subscribe to his YouTube channel<\/a>. Securities and advisory services offered through Prospera Financial Services, Inc. | Member FINRA, SIPC. This should not be considered tax, legal, or investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gambling
is big business in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Even
the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[102,1906,6623,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-352137","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/a><\/p>\n
\nKyla Scanlon believes that gambling is not simply something that
\npeople do at casinos or on phone apps. The entire economy is now a
\ncasino. She identifies \u201cgambling throughout the economy \u2014 in
\nmarkets, policy and how we talk about the future\u201d.4 She
\npoints to things like cryptocurrency, memecoins, tariff political
\ntheatre, and big bets by tech companies on AI to justify her claim.<\/p>\n
\ndon\u2019t think it\u2019s just the thrill gambling offers the consumer and
\nthe increasing ways to scratch that itch that are contributing to the
\neffect of widespread betting on a society. It may also be driven by a
\nseductive neurotransmitter: dopamine.<\/p>\n
\nbe honest, even if you aren\u2019t high on gambling, you may be drunk on
\ndopamine.<\/p>\n
\nwriter, who served on the faculty of Stanford, compares the
\ndifferences between slow traditional culture, fast modern culture,
\nand dopamine culture \u2014 of which gambling is a part \u2014 along with
\ntheir impacts on anything from athletics to relationships.5<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/a><\/p>\n
\nfinancial advisor and one who spends time thinking and talking to
\npeople about their finances and how to build wealth, I could add a
\nwhole row on this kind of culture\u2019s impact on investing:<\/p>\n
\nSLOW TRADITIONAL CULTURE: Read about financial markets in a newspaper
\nthe day after the news happened or watch it on the 6 o\u2019clock news.\u00a0
\nMODERN CULTURE: Watch it 24\/7 on CNBC from market experts and call
\nyour stockbroker.
\nDOPAMINE CULTURE: Watch it, read it, click it, swipe it from a
\nTikTok, Instagram Reel, Facebook post, or YouTube video from people
\ncreating financial media who might have an MBA from a reputable
\nuniversity or who might live in their mom\u2019s basement straight out
\nof high school. A constant stream of amateurs and experts on finance
\nfrom any algorithm that fits your political, religious, and cultural
\ntastes is at your fingertips. Pull up your trading app that lets you
\nbuy\/sell at the push of a screen or swipe of a finger, as if you are
\nplaying a video game.<\/p>\n
\ninvestors make financial decisions based on the immediate present. An
\ninvestment decision about your financial future is reduced to a
\nswipe. Don\u2019t think first and act later. Feel first and act
\nimmediately.<\/p>\n
\nthe investing world, day-traders get this chemical rush often. One
\nwriter for\u00a0Morningstar, a global investment research firm,\u00a0put
\nit this way:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nOn a neurochemical level gambling, day trading and speculation are
\nnot very different. Behavioural economist Sarah Newcomb says \u201cthere
\nare certainly legitimate reasons for the occasional trade. Some
\ntrading is the result of long-term planning and the execution of a
\nsolid strategy. However, repeated studies, including Morningstar\u2019s
\nannual Mind the Gap report, demonstrate that investors who actively
\ntrade tend to underperform the market.\u201d6<\/p>\n
\ninvestors, on the other hand, will need durability over dopamine.
\nThey have more in common with gardening than gambling.<\/p>\n
\nand durability are something that our culture could use a bit more
\nof.<\/p>\n
\nnot naive. I know that investing in the stock market has often been
\ncompared to gambling.<\/p>\n
\ncritique is not always valid, though.<\/p>\n
\ninvesting in the stock market for a day compares to a coin flip,
\ninvesting in it for decades increases to high probabilities of
\nsuccess. In fact, the S&P 500 (America\u2019s largest publicly
\ntraded companies) has been 100% positive across every 20-year period
\nsince 1950.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/a><\/p>\n
\nis not to say that investors will not experience large drawdowns.
\nThey most certainly will.
\n<\/p>\n
\nin the 2000s lost an entire decade.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/a><\/p>\n
\nmatters.<\/p>\n
\nyou had put $10,000 at the beginning in 1999 in the S&P 500 index
\n\u2014 enduring events like the tech bubble popping to 9\/11 to the
\nFinancial Crisis to the COVID crisis \u2014 that would have increased
\nnearly ninefold, totaling around $90,000.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/a><\/p>\n
\ndo you become a durable investor in a dopamine culture?<\/p>\n
\nmay want to consider fasting.<\/p>\n
\nAnna Lembke, author of\u00a0Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in
\nthe Age of Indulgence, gave an interview where she described what
\nthis kind of fast looks like:<\/p>\n
\nThe intervention is basically, very simplified, and threefold.<\/p>\n
\n1. Abstaining for a period of time from our drug of choice.<\/p>\n
\n2. Learning to sit with discomfort, which is, of course, something
\nthat many different traditions teach.<\/p>\n
\n3. Intentionally doing things that are painful: things that are
\nphysically hard and mentally hard.7<\/p>\n
\nsells nowadays like abstinence, discomfort, and hard things.
\n<\/p>\n
\ndurable investors will need to\u00a0abstain\u00a0from the constant
\ndrama coming through their devices. They need to learn to sit with
\nthe discomfort of portfolio drawdowns and the constant hum of
\nnegative what-if scenarios from financial media. They will need to do
\nhard things like cutting back on spending, paying off debt, adding to
\nsavings, and investing based on their future desires, not only
\ntheir present ones.<\/p>\n
\nmay not be pleasurable in the moment. It may force you to say \u201cNo\u201d
\nto reactive, impulse-driven investment decisions, but it just might
\nlead to long-term rewards.<\/p>\n
\nlike a gardener who is focused on a harvest that comes through all
\nkinds of seasons, not a gambler trying to get rich quick.<\/p>\n
\nmight get \u201clucky\u201d gambling, but it won\u2019t make you wise.<\/p>\n
\nChart from Axios article \u201cThe
\nhigh cost of the U.S. sports betting boom\u201d<\/a> published
\nby Erica Pandey on December 14, 2025.
\n<\/p>\n
\nSee Axios article above.<\/p>\n
\nChart taken from Pew
\nResearch Center<\/a> published on October 2, 2025.
\n<\/p>\n
\nNY Times, \u201cIt
\nis Trump\u2019s Casino Economy Now. You\u2019ll Probably Lose.\u201d<\/a>
\nPublished on October 16, 2025.<\/p>\n
\nTed Gioia, \u201cThe
\nState of the Culture, 2024\u201d<\/a> published February 18,
\n2024.
\n<\/p>\n
\nJessica Bebel, \u201cDopamine
\nRushes: is Day Trading as Addictive as Gambling?\u201d<\/a>
\npublished November 23, 2023.
\n<\/p>\n
\nMary Beth Maslowski interview with Dr. Anna Lembke on Psychiatry
\nAdvisor on February 24, 2023: \u201cInterview
\nwith the Author of *Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of
\nIndulgence\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n