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Comment by CharlieDigital | Hacker News Reader

One thing I've noticed: the amount of gambling ads targeted towards young males; kinda wild. I'm glad that I'm not growing up in this era.

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All promising the "get rich quick" ride. One time it was casting shows promising a stratospheric music career. Then it was YouTube/streaming, then it was crypto and (hah) NFTs. And then it's collectible everything (cards, shoes, whatever other dumbass idea).

And for young women it's predatory OnlyFans "agents" encouraging them to be virtual sex workers.

There's probably research about where the money went when lockdown meant no going out and no consuming, while the government gave taxpayers some thousands of dollars of emergency funding...

Reading your comment has just brought to mind the sheer amount of betting and stock trading ads I get on YouTube currently. I’m in my late 30s so a little out of the “young males” category.

I get tons of them too. I don't gamble or play games like that.

Do the honors. Click. Sign up. Use free bonus. Do some arbitrage bets (use bonus to bet on A and bet on ^A elsewhere). Cash out. Close account. They now lose money.

I'm in my mid 40's and get them, too. I suppose they know I'm male, but not necessarily my age; I do not think I'm the target for these as I do not watch sports at all nor game much.

My point here is that I get these ads and I can sense that they are targeting young men.

Consequence of financial nihilism is a propensity towards YOLO plays - They believe that they will never succeed playing the game normally, so they are tempted to take the low % option

Seems like ads for sporting events and sports podcasts annd jersey sponsors are asymptotically approaching 100%.

It's like the VCs are trying to make the AfD win.

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