25M and I live in a state where the majority of gambling is illegal (Texas). Despite that I am having gambling ads shoved down my throat daily on Instagram. I never click on them and I swipe away instantly when I see them, but still get them regardless. All of them are prediction market and mobile game slots.
Ads target a specific sub group. And I think many HNlers are not part of that group.
My guess is that ads online target people with more impulsive buying.
Even if you showed me the perfect ad, I probably would not buy it. Because if I need it, I probably already bought it, and if I don't need it, I won't buy it. So there is not much money being made, ergo we get shown ads for the other type of person.
More or less everybody thinks the way that you do here. Nobody thinks ads work on them, yet companies spend trillions of dollars advertising. One side is right, one side is wrong. Advertising is a particularly insidious industry.
Also, I think a lot of people don't really understand how advertising works. For instance one of the most famous, and effective, ads was Apple's 1984 ad. [1] The goal of advertising isn't necessarily to make you impulsively go click 'buy now', but rather to subconsciously instill certain motivations, drives, and associations within you. That's a 60 second add, ran at Superbowl pricing levels (to say nothing of the rest of cast being directed by Ridley Scott and more), where only about 3 seconds of it has anything directly to do with what's being sold.
> My guess is that ads online target people with more impulsive buying.
There's a dial between ad relevancy and ad yield. Gambling ads are probably high-yield because of high LTV, so advertisers will spend more, even if impressions don't generate many clicks.
I despise advertising too, but unfortunately we are not above their effects (which is why they are so damaging). If you look at cars or clothes or other products and recognize their brand logos or colors or designs, those ads are serving their purpose. Showing you the ad at all and stealing your attention for that moment is their goal.
People say this all the time, but I would like to see the data. And I mean specifically regarding the claim, "no one is immune to consumerist advertising," not "consumerist advertising is effective."
Maybe 20 years ago? I don't watch TV and have used an adblocker for the past 15 years. There is almost no way advertisers can even reach me. I also don't buy things very often.
I am sure ads can work on me, and the HN crowd, if I was targeted. But there are much easier targets that generate more income. So companies spend more on gambling etc ads, where they can make more money.
Oh, ads work alright on people like me. People like me who despise ads. People like me who go out of their way to avoid ads. People like me who, when confronted with ads which somehow manage to make it to our ears for a few seconds before we manage to skip them or rip off the headphones - the only ads which I'm still confronted with are "dynamic ad insertion" specimens in netcasts, often at DOUBLE THE VOLUME - will remember the brand or company and actively avoid giving them our business.
Yes, ads work, maybe not in the way the advertiser thinks but they work alright.
20/50 states don't allow mobile gambling, so Texas is only one of those 40%. Some of those 20 states (9 to be exact) do allow sports betting, but only physically, not online.
That said, this means very little when a different type of gambling ("prediction markets") is somehow allowed everywhere because of the corruption of the current administration, with the son of the president being a "senior advisor" to both Kalshi and Polymarket, completely circumventing state-wide bans.
I had no idea the age range was so low! In my mind, men or women, my stereotype of an addicted gambler is older because they’re often retired and have nothing better to do. Or at least they’re in their 40s or 50s and are doing it because they’re… bored? Idk, I don’t get gambling personally. But this is a surprise.
It's the same reason young men are drawn to crypto. Younger generations are faced with an economy that prices them out of the housing market, so they feel the need to explore alternative wealth-building pathways if they're to achieve the aspirational lifestyles they've been sold.
Realistically though, with the demographics as they are, aren't these young men just throwing dice to gamble against and take the money of other young men? Isn't this a 0 sum game?
Or is it more young men vs the establishment where the establishment wins the vast majority of the time but occasionally a young dude makes the right longshot bet?
> Or is it more young men vs the establishment where the establishment wins the vast majority of the time but occasionally a young dude makes the right longshot bet?
Seems like the latter - except that not only describes how people perceive gambling, but the entire economy considering startups, silicon valley, the current crop of tech billionaires and how they made their fortunes, etc.
So, why not gamble on crypto, NFTs, or prediction markets? Might as well go for the longshots since everything is a longshot anyway
A poor person paying $5.00 for an odds–adjusted $4.99 lottery ticket a couple dozen times in their life is likely not making her worst investment. And if she does win, it is hard to argue against the wisdom of it.
The gamblers, however, will see a future where they have paid $5.00 for a $0.03 ticket and still won the lottery a couple dozen times in a row because they deserve it so they will buy all tickets they can right now ending with 3 —because that's important.
Even when you think you have a legitimate insight so the book is mispriced for your actual odds, you should consider the risk.
Risk management is foremost.
What happens if I lose the almost certainly sure bet?
This may come as a surprise to you, but in the real world, there are not few people whose business is making you think you have an edge on your "long shot".
I mean you could be describing society as it already existed. It is what itself capitalism promotes, gambling just seems a bit more direct. When 99.9% of people apply for a job, they are directly competing against other workers in a zero sum game. Maybe a few years down the line they might open up more jobs so over long enough time spans its not zero sum, but for the person seeking a job at that very moment, it is zero sum. Our economy is zero sum in the short term, its not like people can go freeze themselves in cryostasis and wait a few decades for prospects to be better or the economy to expand, they either earn money now, or they throw that opportunity cost into the trash to never be returned.
> Maybe a few years down the line they might open up more jobs so over long enough time spans its not zero sum
Also, everybody benefits from a society that chooses qualified people for a position, and gives everybody an opportunity to get a job. But that is also something that shows over time and many processes, and it is harder to see in the moment.
Nepotism is the zero-sum version of applying for a job. Only the power to take away from others is accounted, no qualification required just raw power. Which nepo-baby gets the government contract, the board position, etc. is a zero-sum game and participants behave like what it is. Betrayal, lies, etc. is part of that game.
Um, no, it’s not. It’s notoriously hard to estimate exactly but annual consumer surplus in the US alone is estimated to be in the trillions of dollars.
I'm not sure if this tracks internationally, but in the UK sports betting is enormous and young men are included in this. I've got mates from uni I distinctly remember putting chunks of their student loans on the football for example.
Why would a 40/50 year old gamble on the outcome of a bouncing ball when they can gamble on the outcome of a political candidate they work for or a government agency response to an event they helped orchestrate?
Younger men are into gambling for a lot of reasons. It's just too easy to gamble when you can do it on your phone (especially when you're already on your phone). They don't think hard work will get them ahead in life (they are probably correct, given housing prices, etc.). They are bombarded with ads (during the games you can bet on!), influencers, etc. Gambling apps are gamified and give you a lot of incentives to keep coming back. Gambling is addictive enough...
It started as a joke, we used to laugh at the groups of guys who would gamble their food money doing "feast or famine"they knew it was dumb and so did we. Then the joke slowly moved over to my group of friends doing so and we knew it was dumb and treated it so. Fast forward 6 years and its so entrenched in daily life every single guy I know at least casually gambles weekly on their favorite sports and some do multiple bets per day on games they dont even watch. I bet $20-$50 on MMA which is like 5% of my income each week thats considered low.
Young man I’m going to give you a piece of life advice. You don’t throw your money away on something frivolous like that. You buy a long term, safe investment, like FartCoin.
$50/week at 10% compounding monthly for 10 years works out to ~$41k
Maybe that means a lot in 10 years, but... is it that impactful now? More impactful than gambling surely, and perhaps this is a bit myopic, but I feel like you wouldn't even be able to buy any new car with that amount 10 years from now. Hopefully it'll still count as an emergency fund.
We saw the value of money halve over like 4 years while everyone who had money made bank. It's tough to be hopeful that any amount saved is going to go far in the future tbh. $41k is about 1/10th of a down payment on a half-duplex, assuming you're keen to borrow the remaining $1.1m.
Definitely don't gamble though, that message I can get behind.
I agree. I find men in the 18-30 range being a prime target for targeted gambling ads.
In Australia, it is also not just in app/browser ads either. Gambling promotion is very normalised and entrenched.
The major sports on news and sports shows have the odds showing who is likely to win. Some sports analysis shows (especially on pay TV) even go as far as providing overs/unders for line betting or "possibly wins" from multi-bets (bet $100 and you can win $123,000 with this combination).
Around the sports grounds - all covered in ads. The scoreboards have odds. The team and competition mobile apps all have odds. Even commentary on the radio has ads inserted regularly during a call: "Player A runs up and kicks a goal, and they are now level with 10 points on the Elon-Musk SpaceX Scoreboard. An amazing goal, it's a candidate for the Anthropic goal of the week." During quarter/half breaks, they give more options to bet on. Due to this, I prefer mostly to listen to commentary on public broadcasters as they are not allowed to contain ads at all. I find commercial radio trying to insert brand names every second sentence rather than providing expert analysis.
Similar to loot boxes for teens. It's building up habits for future gambling addictions. Mostly FPS games - that are prominently targeted at teenage boys.
Remember that a lot of men in the 18-30 range have been using lootbox mechanics in games since their teens. Or at least similar game mechanics where you are rewarded for taking a risk or loyalty with a random reward (loot tables, daily login rewards etc.).
I think a lot of gambling related material is targeted at the ages below legal gambling age with the specific purpose to get people to start gambling from legal age, however that would be hidden of course. Similarly no one becomes an alcoholic or smoking addict overnight the day they become of legal age for that substance, there is a buildup period.
Gambling addiction is way more damaging the younger you get in touch with it.
Gambling and scalping (and the combo that comes from reselling things like pokemon cards and other blind box products). They really do seem like the only options for a lot of people to live the kind of life that they've been sold as the ideal.
And as much as I hate that this is what is happening, I feel like that's what I'm going to end up being forced to try after 15+ years in working software development jobs, given how badly the companies want to replace us with LLMs. Hasn't gotten to that point yet but I'm shocked every day we're not laid off.
You say "a lot of people" but there aren't many of those. The scalpers/pokemon resellers/... making bank and posting on Instagram are, if not outright fraud, at best the 1% to 0.1% of those trying to do it
I agree that there's very often a "world ending, women most effected" tone in the media, but... doesn't this article explicitly go against that? It's not complaining that women aren't being equally enticed to throw away their money gambling.
Given reported gender ratios I'm kinda surprised it's only 2:1. Supposedly 98% of problem gamblers online are male and I think it's like 3:1 in general?
They are trying to break into new demographics. For a gambling company, women gambling less is issue that can be solved only by convincing women to gamble more.
Young men believe, thanks to social media constantly repeating them the same message, that the only way out of a sad wage cuck existence is hypergambling. This text opened my eyes to it https://oldcoinbad.com/p/long-degeneracy
This feels like it sounds nice on paper, but there isn't really any much data justify it... Yes, incomes and inflation aren't lining up. But that has been true for a couple generations now.
When you're in your 20s, none of your friends have houses, high paying jobs, etc. So home ownership isn't really a priority. You're not aware of the generational gap since all of your friends are experiencing it with you.
Young people, especially men, are not great at planning for the future, b/c they think they will be young forever.
I think its just men are bored. Dating sucks. Going out is expensive. Betting at home is wayy more fun than being rejected by women (on apps or in a bar/club).
It's true, though. The life Homer Simpson had is out of reach.
The school system gives boys worse grades. Once you're a man, women expect their partner to earn more than they do, while women want the same pay as their male colleagues. It can't work.
The internets tell you women expect that, but observed reality doesn't really line up with that.
Visit any Safeway and you see plenty of regular normal everyday couples where the man is not a billionaire, and the lady is not a 15-years younger nymphomaniac.
People pair up with their colleagues all the time, despite the internet telling you that doesn't happen anymore. And they don't mind that their coworker makes the same money.
This probably has to do with how men use the internet. When it comes to addictive stuff, as well as watching ... well ... nudity, but also high-intensity gaming, one can assume that males are more interested and active in this regard in general, on average. So if you are more active or spend more time, naturally ads would target you more.
On the other hand, I use e. g. ublock origin so thankfully most of those spam-ads that are of zero interest to me, I never get to see. Contrary to evil Empires such as Google with its "acceptable ads" propaganda crap, I never felt any downside to perma-banning ads from my life. (Does not work 100%, but the reduction I got via ublock origin and others is enormous - and that's great.)
Unfortunately some people are really susceptible to ads and addictive behaviour. I know someone personally who got into that, and subsequently also debts due to feeding that gambling addiction. It is very hard to break out of that cycle once you get in, depending on how the brain operates; similar how some can not stop smoking. Thankfully I never got into any of that because I also never fully trusted my brain, so the better strategy was to consistently say nope. But the brain of people operates differently, some really have a very hard time to avoid patterns that feed them into an addiction system, and ads also try to exploit this (another reason why all companies relying on ads should be removed, starting with Mr. Google, the AdCompany Number #1).
25M and I live in a state where the majority of gambling is illegal (Texas). Despite that I am having gambling ads shoved down my throat daily on Instagram. I never click on them and I swipe away instantly when I see them, but still get them regardless. All of them are prediction market and mobile game slots.
Ads target a specific sub group. And I think many HNlers are not part of that group. My guess is that ads online target people with more impulsive buying.
Even if you showed me the perfect ad, I probably would not buy it. Because if I need it, I probably already bought it, and if I don't need it, I won't buy it. So there is not much money being made, ergo we get shown ads for the other type of person.
More or less everybody thinks the way that you do here. Nobody thinks ads work on them, yet companies spend trillions of dollars advertising. One side is right, one side is wrong. Advertising is a particularly insidious industry.
Also, I think a lot of people don't really understand how advertising works. For instance one of the most famous, and effective, ads was Apple's 1984 ad. [1] The goal of advertising isn't necessarily to make you impulsively go click 'buy now', but rather to subconsciously instill certain motivations, drives, and associations within you. That's a 60 second add, ran at Superbowl pricing levels (to say nothing of the rest of cast being directed by Ridley Scott and more), where only about 3 seconds of it has anything directly to do with what's being sold.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I
> My guess is that ads online target people with more impulsive buying.
There's a dial between ad relevancy and ad yield. Gambling ads are probably high-yield because of high LTV, so advertisers will spend more, even if impressions don't generate many clicks.
Whether or not it works on you, you are not them, and there are millions of people on whom gambling advertising works really well.
I don't understand why people comment "I am not the target audience" so often. No, you're not, but the target audience definitely exists.
I despise advertising too, but unfortunately we are not above their effects (which is why they are so damaging). If you look at cars or clothes or other products and recognize their brand logos or colors or designs, those ads are serving their purpose. Showing you the ad at all and stealing your attention for that moment is their goal.
You may think the ads dont work on people like you, but often data shows otherwise.
People say this all the time, but I would like to see the data. And I mean specifically regarding the claim, "no one is immune to consumerist advertising," not "consumerist advertising is effective."
It's probably more "enough people are affected by consumerist advertising that it's effective"
The data appears to be wrong. I buy a lot of stuff and services, but very little of it is even advertised.
As Jeff Bezos says, "when the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right."
https://lexfridman.com/jeff-bezos-transcript/#chapter6_amazo...
I can confidently guarantee that the traditional TV advertisement has no effect on me. Astroturfing definately has an effect on everyone though.
You've never learned about a service or product from a TV ad?
Maybe 20 years ago? I don't watch TV and have used an adblocker for the past 15 years. There is almost no way advertisers can even reach me. I also don't buy things very often.
I am sure ads can work on me, and the HN crowd, if I was targeted. But there are much easier targets that generate more income. So companies spend more on gambling etc ads, where they can make more money.
Oh, ads work alright on people like me. People like me who despise ads. People like me who go out of their way to avoid ads. People like me who, when confronted with ads which somehow manage to make it to our ears for a few seconds before we manage to skip them or rip off the headphones - the only ads which I'm still confronted with are "dynamic ad insertion" specimens in netcasts, often at DOUBLE THE VOLUME - will remember the brand or company and actively avoid giving them our business.
Yes, ads work, maybe not in the way the advertiser thinks but they work alright.
How the fuck did Texas get this one right but the rest of the USA is in flames.
That being said, things like Nyse Texas paint an opposite picture of the state.
20/50 states don't allow mobile gambling, so Texas is only one of those 40%. Some of those 20 states (9 to be exact) do allow sports betting, but only physically, not online.
That said, this means very little when a different type of gambling ("prediction markets") is somehow allowed everywhere because of the corruption of the current administration, with the son of the president being a "senior advisor" to both Kalshi and Polymarket, completely circumventing state-wide bans.
I had no idea the age range was so low! In my mind, men or women, my stereotype of an addicted gambler is older because they’re often retired and have nothing better to do. Or at least they’re in their 40s or 50s and are doing it because they’re… bored? Idk, I don’t get gambling personally. But this is a surprise.
It's the same reason young men are drawn to crypto. Younger generations are faced with an economy that prices them out of the housing market, so they feel the need to explore alternative wealth-building pathways if they're to achieve the aspirational lifestyles they've been sold.
Realistically though, with the demographics as they are, aren't these young men just throwing dice to gamble against and take the money of other young men? Isn't this a 0 sum game?
Or is it more young men vs the establishment where the establishment wins the vast majority of the time but occasionally a young dude makes the right longshot bet?
It's a negative sum game when you account for the house rake.
> Or is it more young men vs the establishment where the establishment wins the vast majority of the time but occasionally a young dude makes the right longshot bet?
Seems like the latter - except that not only describes how people perceive gambling, but the entire economy considering startups, silicon valley, the current crop of tech billionaires and how they made their fortunes, etc.
So, why not gamble on crypto, NFTs, or prediction markets? Might as well go for the longshots since everything is a longshot anyway
A poor person paying $5.00 for an odds–adjusted $4.99 lottery ticket a couple dozen times in their life is likely not making her worst investment. And if she does win, it is hard to argue against the wisdom of it.
The gamblers, however, will see a future where they have paid $5.00 for a $0.03 ticket and still won the lottery a couple dozen times in a row because they deserve it so they will buy all tickets they can right now ending with 3 —because that's important.
Even when you think you have a legitimate insight so the book is mispriced for your actual odds, you should consider the risk.
Risk management is foremost.
What happens if I lose the almost certainly sure bet?
This may come as a surprise to you, but in the real world, there are not few people whose business is making you think you have an edge on your "long shot".
I mean you could be describing society as it already existed. It is what itself capitalism promotes, gambling just seems a bit more direct. When 99.9% of people apply for a job, they are directly competing against other workers in a zero sum game. Maybe a few years down the line they might open up more jobs so over long enough time spans its not zero sum, but for the person seeking a job at that very moment, it is zero sum. Our economy is zero sum in the short term, its not like people can go freeze themselves in cryostasis and wait a few decades for prospects to be better or the economy to expand, they either earn money now, or they throw that opportunity cost into the trash to never be returned.
> Maybe a few years down the line they might open up more jobs so over long enough time spans its not zero sum
Also, everybody benefits from a society that chooses qualified people for a position, and gives everybody an opportunity to get a job. But that is also something that shows over time and many processes, and it is harder to see in the moment.
Nepotism is the zero-sum version of applying for a job. Only the power to take away from others is accounted, no qualification required just raw power. Which nepo-baby gets the government contract, the board position, etc. is a zero-sum game and participants behave like what it is. Betrayal, lies, etc. is part of that game.
>Our economy is zero sum in the short term
Um, no, it’s not. It’s notoriously hard to estimate exactly but annual consumer surplus in the US alone is estimated to be in the trillions of dollars.
It's both
I'm not sure if this tracks internationally, but in the UK sports betting is enormous and young men are included in this. I've got mates from uni I distinctly remember putting chunks of their student loans on the football for example.
I think gambling was slowly going that way before crypto, robinhood, sports betting, finfluencers, etc brought it back in big time for young men.
Why would a 40/50 year old gamble on the outcome of a bouncing ball when they can gamble on the outcome of a political candidate they work for or a government agency response to an event they helped orchestrate?
Because the vast majority of 40/50 year olds don't fit into either category you described?
Younger men are into gambling for a lot of reasons. It's just too easy to gamble when you can do it on your phone (especially when you're already on your phone). They don't think hard work will get them ahead in life (they are probably correct, given housing prices, etc.). They are bombarded with ads (during the games you can bet on!), influencers, etc. Gambling apps are gamified and give you a lot of incentives to keep coming back. Gambling is addictive enough...
It started as a joke, we used to laugh at the groups of guys who would gamble their food money doing "feast or famine"they knew it was dumb and so did we. Then the joke slowly moved over to my group of friends doing so and we knew it was dumb and treated it so. Fast forward 6 years and its so entrenched in daily life every single guy I know at least casually gambles weekly on their favorite sports and some do multiple bets per day on games they dont even watch. I bet $20-$50 on MMA which is like 5% of my income each week thats considered low.
Young man I’m going to give you a piece of life advice. You don’t throw your money away on something frivolous like that. You buy a long term, safe investment, like FartCoin.
I don't know if you're joking but FartCoin hasn't shown returns all year.
Please do the math on what $50/week could mean to you in 10 or 20 years and compare that to the likelihood you have any kind of edge betting.
$50/week at 10% compounding monthly for 10 years works out to ~$41k
Maybe that means a lot in 10 years, but... is it that impactful now? More impactful than gambling surely, and perhaps this is a bit myopic, but I feel like you wouldn't even be able to buy any new car with that amount 10 years from now. Hopefully it'll still count as an emergency fund.
We saw the value of money halve over like 4 years while everyone who had money made bank. It's tough to be hopeful that any amount saved is going to go far in the future tbh. $41k is about 1/10th of a down payment on a half-duplex, assuming you're keen to borrow the remaining $1.1m.
Definitely don't gamble though, that message I can get behind.
I think that $50 a week is expensive hobby, but affordable.
The real threat is that it wont stop there. Some will go to $100 a week, $500 a week and so on, because that is how addiction works.
For all the rationalizations, they do it for the feeling it gets them. And those feelings will drive higher stakes even after you have gambling debt.
I agree. I find men in the 18-30 range being a prime target for targeted gambling ads.
In Australia, it is also not just in app/browser ads either. Gambling promotion is very normalised and entrenched.
The major sports on news and sports shows have the odds showing who is likely to win. Some sports analysis shows (especially on pay TV) even go as far as providing overs/unders for line betting or "possibly wins" from multi-bets (bet $100 and you can win $123,000 with this combination).
Around the sports grounds - all covered in ads. The scoreboards have odds. The team and competition mobile apps all have odds. Even commentary on the radio has ads inserted regularly during a call: "Player A runs up and kicks a goal, and they are now level with 10 points on the Elon-Musk SpaceX Scoreboard. An amazing goal, it's a candidate for the Anthropic goal of the week." During quarter/half breaks, they give more options to bet on. Due to this, I prefer mostly to listen to commentary on public broadcasters as they are not allowed to contain ads at all. I find commercial radio trying to insert brand names every second sentence rather than providing expert analysis.
Similar to loot boxes for teens. It's building up habits for future gambling addictions. Mostly FPS games - that are prominently targeted at teenage boys.
Remember that a lot of men in the 18-30 range have been using lootbox mechanics in games since their teens. Or at least similar game mechanics where you are rewarded for taking a risk or loyalty with a random reward (loot tables, daily login rewards etc.).
I think a lot of gambling related material is targeted at the ages below legal gambling age with the specific purpose to get people to start gambling from legal age, however that would be hidden of course. Similarly no one becomes an alcoholic or smoking addict overnight the day they become of legal age for that substance, there is a buildup period.
Gambling addiction is way more damaging the younger you get in touch with it.
Gambling and scalping (and the combo that comes from reselling things like pokemon cards and other blind box products). They really do seem like the only options for a lot of people to live the kind of life that they've been sold as the ideal.
And as much as I hate that this is what is happening, I feel like that's what I'm going to end up being forced to try after 15+ years in working software development jobs, given how badly the companies want to replace us with LLMs. Hasn't gotten to that point yet but I'm shocked every day we're not laid off.
You say "a lot of people" but there aren't many of those. The scalpers/pokemon resellers/... making bank and posting on Instagram are, if not outright fraud, at best the 1% to 0.1% of those trying to do it
They are not options to get that lifestyle. Any rational evaluation shows that.
It is about how those men want to feel.
These sorts of studies, on medicine, economics, etc. get a lot of coverage in the Guardian and on the BBC.
I'm always left with the impression that they wouldn't give a shit if they weren't affecting women.
I agree that there's very often a "world ending, women most effected" tone in the media, but... doesn't this article explicitly go against that? It's not complaining that women aren't being equally enticed to throw away their money gambling.
You're commenting on a study that says something is affecting mainly men.
Ad Targeting Confirmed To Exist
Is this surprising? Expected? Simple observation?
Presumably these ads are targeted intentionally to their audience, and this research confirms it.
Given reported gender ratios I'm kinda surprised it's only 2:1. Supposedly 98% of problem gamblers online are male and I think it's like 3:1 in general?
They are trying to break into new demographics. For a gambling company, women gambling less is issue that can be solved only by convincing women to gamble more.
Surprising, would have thought the target demo for gambling ad buys would skew MUCH more young male
Fork found in kitchen.
An inequality that must be addressed!
The list is long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inequalities
Young men believe, thanks to social media constantly repeating them the same message, that the only way out of a sad wage cuck existence is hypergambling. This text opened my eyes to it https://oldcoinbad.com/p/long-degeneracy
This feels like it sounds nice on paper, but there isn't really any much data justify it... Yes, incomes and inflation aren't lining up. But that has been true for a couple generations now.
When you're in your 20s, none of your friends have houses, high paying jobs, etc. So home ownership isn't really a priority. You're not aware of the generational gap since all of your friends are experiencing it with you.
Young people, especially men, are not great at planning for the future, b/c they think they will be young forever.
I think its just men are bored. Dating sucks. Going out is expensive. Betting at home is wayy more fun than being rejected by women (on apps or in a bar/club).
It's true, though. The life Homer Simpson had is out of reach.
The school system gives boys worse grades. Once you're a man, women expect their partner to earn more than they do, while women want the same pay as their male colleagues. It can't work.
The internets tell you women expect that, but observed reality doesn't really line up with that.
Visit any Safeway and you see plenty of regular normal everyday couples where the man is not a billionaire, and the lady is not a 15-years younger nymphomaniac.
People pair up with their colleagues all the time, despite the internet telling you that doesn't happen anymore. And they don't mind that their coworker makes the same money.
This probably has to do with how men use the internet. When it comes to addictive stuff, as well as watching ... well ... nudity, but also high-intensity gaming, one can assume that males are more interested and active in this regard in general, on average. So if you are more active or spend more time, naturally ads would target you more.
On the other hand, I use e. g. ublock origin so thankfully most of those spam-ads that are of zero interest to me, I never get to see. Contrary to evil Empires such as Google with its "acceptable ads" propaganda crap, I never felt any downside to perma-banning ads from my life. (Does not work 100%, but the reduction I got via ublock origin and others is enormous - and that's great.)
Unfortunately some people are really susceptible to ads and addictive behaviour. I know someone personally who got into that, and subsequently also debts due to feeding that gambling addiction. It is very hard to break out of that cycle once you get in, depending on how the brain operates; similar how some can not stop smoking. Thankfully I never got into any of that because I also never fully trusted my brain, so the better strategy was to consistently say nope. But the brain of people operates differently, some really have a very hard time to avoid patterns that feed them into an addiction system, and ads also try to exploit this (another reason why all companies relying on ads should be removed, starting with Mr. Google, the AdCompany Number #1).
alternative title: 1/3 gambling ads now target women, massive increase