TIE #093: Casino Culture (and How to Profit From It)
Ignoring this phenomenon is a gigantic financial error.
I remember being a teenager and questioning why adults played the lottery.
Some simple math based on the published odds made it very clear that it was a fools errand and not worth the investment.
However, it wasn’t until my late 20s that I truly realized how addicted Americans are to gambling.
It doesn’t end with the lottery and it doesn’t even end with crypto.
The stock market has a way to bet on stocks going up or down and these instruments are called options.
While they are best used for hedging, they have turned into a gambling tool:
“Dailies” are the most risky version of options and are almost never used for hedging, meaning retail traders are responsible for the increase in volume over the last decade.
When I say that everyone using daily options loses money in the long run, I mean everyone.
That takes us over to sports betting:
2024 saw an increase in sports betting revenue of 22.2% vs. the year prior.
Given that several states still do not allow this, it is poised to continue growing in prominence.
This isn’t something that people are doing for fun, it is people’s entire lives and even part of their personality.
We are talking about young adults lighting billions of dollars on fire before our very eyes.
The huge drop Las Vegas traffic (google it) is directly related to this.
Why would people spend all of that money to do something they can now do on their phone, in a multitude of ways?
I have the opinion that degenerate behavior like this only travels in one direction, just like entropy.
It only gets worse and transforms into other forms of degenerate behavior.
People are addicted to the rush and the potential financial reward that almost always escapes them.
While I would love to have the ability to educate these people and help them direct their money towards something more advantageous, we all know that isn’t possible.
I bring all of this up to say that ignoring this trend is mistake and you stand to make a lot of money if you embrace how prevalent it has become.
The Pokémon card market I write about every month?
This too is Casino Culture.
Young adults are addicted to buying sealed boxes and ripping them open to find nostalgic cards that are potentially worth a lot of money.
It has even transitioned over to Magic the Gathering and is the sole reason that Hasbro hasn’t gone out of business:
“Okay cool story bro, how do I take advantage of Casino Culture?”
I’m not a licensed financial advisor so I can’t tell you what to do with your money.
All I can do is tell you what I do with mine.
I have a significant chunk of net worth allocated to the following areas:
Pokémon booster boxes (you should already know this, read here if not)
Hasbro stock ($HAS, up 42% in 2025)
Sportradar stock ($SRAD, up 73% in 2025)
Robinhood stock ($HOOD, up 181% in 2025)
eBay stock ($EBAY, up 61% in 2025)
EA stock ($EA, up 16% in 2025)
Take-Two stock ($TTWO, up 24% in 2025)
Tencent stock ($TCEHY, up 41% in 2025)
While LEGO doesn’t have a gambling component, it does feature a similar dynamic in that customers are not willing to plan purchases around retirement dates.
If you are willing to do what they aren’t, you stand to gain financially.
Consumer impatience is at the core of Casino Culture and LEGO investing success.
There are a lot of beliefs I have about the world, but there are very few I’m willing to risk part of my net worth on.
Casino Culture is one of them and it might be the one I feel most confident in, above all else.
Could I be wrong about this long term? Absolutely.
But that is a bet I’m willing to make.
When you are ready, there is one way I can help you:
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