Betting Your Future Away: How Gamified Finance Is Bankrupting America

Fun or financial trap?

In 2024, Americans wagered nearly $150 billion on sports betting, and one in four bettors reported missing a bill payment because of their wagers (Garrison, 2025). Thirty percent of sports bettors attribute existing debt to gambling, with more than half carrying revolving credit‑card balances and 15 percent taking out personal loans to fund bets. These figures highlight a dangerous convergence of easy access and gamified design in modern wagering platforms.

My dissertation highlighted that a combination of convoluted products and services with ease of access amplifies the hazards. I note that various tech-forward “investment” sites have spawned a community of speculators susceptible to the harsh reality that comes with their activities. My dissertation also documented how the surge in financial technology has placed financial products and services on the doorstep of consumers, often overwhelming them with complexity. Moreover, early adopters of mobile‑payment apps frequently display expensive financial behaviors, such as spending more than they earn … and occasionally overdrawing their checking accounts. (Fisher, 2021).

Tracing how we got here

Together, these patterns underscore a first key lesson: easy access is not neutral. Whether through sports‑betting apps or trading platforms, gamified interfaces can turn even financially savvy individuals into impulsive speculators. A second lesson follows: knowledge alone is not enough. Despite significant investment in literacy programs ($670 million annually), real-world behaviors continue to deteriorate (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 2013).

Nevertheless, we’re under‑investing in prevention. Sports‑betting brands—together spent over $1 billion on advertising in 2024 alone, overwhelming consumers with promotions they often cannot resist (MediaPost, 2025). That leads to our third lesson: we under‑invest in prevention. 

Yet while betting firms pour over $1 billion into flashy ads, we invest barely half a billion in financial education, and literacy rates barely budge (Lin et al., 2025). Meanwhile, technology isn’t pausing for us to catch up: smartphones and apps have become the primary gateway to financial action, with 81 percent of adults now banking via mobile devices, finally outpacing computer‑based online banking (78 percent) for the first time (Lin et al., 2025).

Nevertheless, this convenience masks a troubling knowledge gap and overconfidence: although 64 percent believe they understand personal finance well, only 46 percent can correctly answer four of five core financial literacy questions (Lin et al., 2025). Nearly a quarter of 18‑ to 34-year-olds rate their willingness to take financial risks at 8–10 on a 10-point scale, intensifying the danger (Lin et al., 2025). This is our fourth lesson: perceived knowledge often exceeds actual capability, and high risk tolerance among young adults compounds vulnerability.

Let’s play a smarter game

To address these challenges, we must adopt an ABC framework—enhancing ACUITY (knowledge),  through targeted, just-in-time education; shaping BEHAVIOR via evidence-based interventions and product‑design safeguards; and expanding CAPABILITY, which is more safe places for consumers to bank and invest (like many credit unions). Only by aligning around ABC—Acuity, Behavior, and Capability—can we reverse mounting debt, declining capability, and the exploitation inherent in gamified finance.

References

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (2013). Navigating the market: A comparison of spending on financial education and financial marketing.

Fisher, P. R. (2021). Financial literacy and behavior in credit unions: An exploration of member financial literacy and financial behavior in the credit union model. George Fox University.

Garrison, G. (2025, July 23). 2025 sports betting and debt survey.

Lin, J. T., Bumcrot, C., Lusardi, A., Valdes, O., Mottola, G., Ganem, R., Sarver, S., Kieffer, C., McLaughlin, R., & Walsh, G. (2025). Financial capability in the United States: Results from the FINRA Foundation’s National Financial Capability Study (6th Ed.). FINRA Investor Education Foundation.

MediaPost. (2025). Top betting brands’ ad spending approaches $1 b.