The Casino Economy

Through our research, we’ve spoken to a broad swath of Americans about how they plan and prepare for the future— and in recent years, we’ve started to notice a tide change. These days you’re more likely to find someone talking about their plan to retire off of crypto than a pension, and if you asked for financial advice, you’d probably hear things that felt totally counterintuitive to traditional wisdom (that, for example, it’s better off renting rather than buying).

It’s not just that people are getting their information from alternative sources. Rather, the frameworks they use to make sense of the economy have radically shifted. Faith in a rational market— one that rewards stability and slow and steady growth— has given way to the growing sense that the economy is a giant casino where the house always wins. As a result, speculation and risk-taking have been deemed the only way to keep up with a system that is disproportionately benefiting top earners while the average household languishes. The financial products and firms that’ll succeed in this environment will be the ones that are able to respond to this broader shift in financial reasoning.

When The House Always Wins

Admittedly, the myth of gradual, linear retirement had been disappearing long before this current moment of market volatility. The idea of any sort of “traditional path” (marked by college, gradual career advancement, home ownership) faded into the background throughout the aughts, replaced by stories of college dropouts turned billionaire CEOs and calls to go to coding bootcamp. Yet where we once sought to deal with uncertainty by diversifying traditional financial assets or skillsets to adapt to new industries like the tech sector— an attitude driven by the still optimistic belief that the economy worked rationally and just required the individual to adjust to its changing shape—people are increasingly driven by the idea that economic activity is a gamble where the house always wins, so keeping up requires speculation and risk-taking.

This idea didn’t come from nowhere. One might even say that this approach to finance comes from the financial world itself, where the dismantling of regulations in the 80s and 90s transformed banking from a relatively stable business of loans and deposits into a high-stakes trading floor. Derivatives, mortgage-backed securities, and complex financial instruments turned Wall Street into precisely the kind of casino that retail investors now see when they look at the broader economy. It’s a cynical attitude that’s only been bolstered by events like the 2008 bailout and the 2021 Robinhood trade halt during the GameStop frenzy, which reinforced the idea that the cards were stacked against the average person. It’s no surprise that people— particularly as they’ve been precluded from traditional pathways to economic success—have concluded that the only response to this economic reality is to embrace speculation.

Regulation Meets Gamification

This speculative risk-taking has been enabled in large part by a changing regulatory landscape. The gradual legalization of sports betting, for instance, got everyday people used to the idea of gambling— and an ecosystem of content creators, producing videos like “Sports Betting… Investment Or Gambling?,” contributed to the blurring borders between traditional financial strategies and betting.

These changing regulations in turn paved the way for companies and platforms designed to help people transform anything and everything into a financial asset. While this began in the 2010s with platforms like Robinhood that opened up new kinds of financial instruments to the average retail investor, it quickly expanded with services that let people invest in things like fine art and luxury bags through fractional ownership. In recent years, it’s come to a head with crypto, memecoins, and prediction markets that have transformed everything from trends to attention to current events into financial opportunities that can be speculated on. Even alternative banks like Wealthsimple have gotten in on this shift, blending the logic of the lottery and investment by offering promotions like their “Solid Gold Giveaway.”

New information channels have emerged to guide people through this new economic reality. It’s not just the Wall Street Journal anymore, it’s r/wallstreetbets, Discord servers, and increasingly, AI— which is expected to become the leading source of information for people in the coming years, beating out financial advisors and friends and family— that is creating new beliefs guiding financial activity. Even old folk wisdom is being challenged (the classic recession indicators like the “tin fish” indicator, for instance, has been upended by an appetite for tinned fish caused by viral trends), creating a vacuum of authority that’s being filled by everything from “finfluencers” to prediction markets. This reliance on alternative information sources makes it clear that what we’re seeing isn’t mere recklessness, it’s speculation that’s trying to keep up with the lightning-fast pace of the current economy and news cycle.

Looking Forward

Companies will need to respond to a world where financial decisions are driven by speculation, risk, speed, and the wholesale transformation of anything and everything into a potential asset. This is a world in which the feeling of wealth-building—that is, the feeling that a purchase is a potential investment— has taken a central role in guiding people’s financial decisions. Brands will need to adapt by thinking about how consumers might feel like stakeholders through their purchases— leveraging the logic of assethood to generate loyalty. And since liquidity is a key component of this speculative model (think back to the advice about not tying up your assets with a house), high-ticket purchases will need to be framed as liquid investments with exit strategies rather than long-term commitments.

Lastly, companies can think strategically about how releases can play into this speculative space to build brand desirability and drive initial demand. McDonald's for instance, launched collector cups in 2024 that retailed for around $5 but immediately began reselling on eBay for hundreds—transforming a simple promotional item into a tradable asset and generating viral buzz in the process. In a world where the economy increasingly resembles a casino, the brands that will thrive are those that recognize their customers are people looking for their next bet to place.