A Bet That Young People Are Willing to Make

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More than a decade ago, the anthropologist Natasha Schüll set out to describe the mindset of a certain kind of Las Vegas gambler—the type whose penchant for video poker, slots, and other solitary casino games would likely register to most people as extreme.

What she found was that their pursuit wasn’t always about the money.

For many of them, it was about the experience itself, which would consistently produce a strange sort of trancelike state.

Drawing on her subjects’ own descriptions, Schüll called this “the zone”: a psychic frame in which “time, space, and social identity are suspended,” and risk is replaced by a temporary feeling of safety.

Many people experience something similar on today’s internet, even outside the financial realm.

You might find yourself swiping on a dating app, seeking the thrill of the next match (and the next, and the next) without necessarily pursuing a real-life relationship.

You might flick past a dozen Instagram Reels without really knowing why you did so.

There’s a reason the concept of “endless scroll” has become a cliché.

This is a tempting rubric for understanding the explosive growth of online betting too.

But when I spoke with Schüll last month, she explained that for the mostly young, mostly male users of modern sportsbooks and exchanges, the pleasure of the zone is just one among many.

Online betting happens today in a few major forums.

On prediction markets, users can buy contracts tied to real-world outcomes, which can then be sold and resold.

Polymarket and Kalshi, recently valued at $21 billion and $22 billion respectively, are leading an industry that could see $10 trillion in annual trading volumes by 2035.