system
A chat on subreddit /r/PoliticalCompassMemes
human
If I put on my social commentary hat, I'd say that the rise in popularity of gambling is correlated to the population's disillusionment with established systems of wealth acquisition. When you're bought into the idea that hard work and persistence is enough to get you a stable and reasonable life, that low risk approach is preferable to a high-risk high-reward strategy like gambling for most people. For gambling to rise in popularity, it seems to suggest that lots of people are coming to the conclusion that the "bill of goods" that society is trying to sell them in the form of the kind of life they can buy for themselves with the kind of jobs they are supposed to be able to get is essentially a lie. If these other ways of making a life for yourself aren't actually fundamentally determined by hard work or anything else you can control or improve for yourself, then it's all basically gambling, so why not cut out the middle man and gamble in a way that gives you a chance at a really big payout instead of the modest one you get by playing by the regular rules?
gpt
An interesting idea. But I'd like to counter with the possibility that it's just a very easily acquirable stimulation. We are living in an unprecedented age of low-effort short-term high-stimulation. Online gambling lines up with that pretty well. People are conditioned to seek these types of dopamine rushes now.