The Gamblification of Everything

Details
Location: Crimson Whiskey Bar (Either the downstairs whiskey bar, or main floor bar, TBD)

The purpose of Thinkers and Drinkers is to facilitate casual but meaningful and interesting conversations with other people in a face-to-face setting. The topics cover a wide variety of issues and are different for every meeting. While conversations may get heated at times, we ask that all members be respectful of each other and refrain from personal insults.

Topic: The Gamblification of Everything
Gambling is certainly not anything new. The idea of making a quick buck based on a game was just as appealing to ancient Mesopotamians as it is to estranged uncles who moved to Las Vegas.

In the US, sports gambling has exploded since the Supreme Court ruling in 2018 that struck down a nationwide ban on sports betting.
A survey released last year revealed 22% of Americans had an active sports betting account, and nearly half of men aged 18-40. This growth has mainly been associated with mobile apps like DraftKings, which thrive on allowing many small bets anytime, anywhere, on people's phones. Unsuprisingly this has led to a dramatic increase in gambling addictions for people in their 20s.

It's not just sports gambling that has taken off, but other new betting markets like Polymarket that allow users to bet on anything from elections and international conflict to earthquakes and video game release dates. Meme/Joke markets like "Whether or not Jesus will return this year" have popped up that have volume in the tens of millions of dollars.

With prediction markets becoming legal in the US after a CFTC decision in October 2025, these prediction markets are set to grow more, both in terms of volume and the number of things they bet on.

Questions to Consider:

• Are sports gambling addictions overhyped?
• Should the federal government put restrictions on sports betting and prediction markets?
• How does the role of social media influence people's views on taking extraordinary risks to get rich fast?
• What type of impact do prediction markets have on the things they are trying to predict? Could this provide adverse incentives for someone to influence an election just because of the bets they have taken?