“Baby, I can’t stay, you got to roll me…”
The Rolling Stones released “Tumbling Dice” as the lead single from the band's 1972 classic double albumExile on Main St. It’s a song about risk, temptation, and the irresistible urge to keep playing even when the odds aren’t in your favor. The lyrics describe a gambler who knows the house usually wins but keeps rolling anyway.
If you are not familiar with the song or want a fun tune to hum along to during the day, I have included a YouTube link below with the song’s lyrics for your listening pleasure.
The Rolling Stones - Tumbling Dice [Official Lyric Video]
Source: YouTube
More than fifty years later, the metaphor feels strangely modern. Because everywhere you look today, someone is rolling the dice.
Sports betting apps buzz with push notifications before every game. Prediction markets allow people to wager on everything from elections to inflation reports. Trading platforms let investors speculate on options contracts that expire in a matter of hours. And all of it happens on the same device most Americans carry in their pocket.
What once required a trip to Las Vegas, a racetrack, or a call to a stockbroker can now happen between sips of coffee while standing in line at Starbucks. The American economy hasn’t just digitized commerce and communication. Increasingly, it has digitized speculation itself.
And in the process, the line between gambling and investing is becoming harder to see.
Part of the confusion stems from the rise of prediction markets, which at first glance look similar to traditional gambling. Both involve wagering money on uncertain outcomes. But structurally, they operate very differently.
iStock.com/Davizro
In traditional gambling, you are betting against the house. A bookmaker sets the odds, and those odds contain a built-in margin that ensures the house profits over time. Whether you are betting on the Super Bowl or spinning a roulette wheel, the structure of the game is designed so that the casino ultimately wins.
Prediction markets operate more like financial exchanges. Instead of betting against a bookmaker, participants trade contracts among themselves. The price of a contract reflects the crowd’s collective estimate of the probability that an event will occur. If a contract trading at 60 cents pays $1 if the event occurs, the market is effectively saying there is a 60 percent chance of that outcome.
In theory, prediction markets can serve a useful purpose. Economists have long argued that they can aggregate information and produce surprisingly accurate forecasts. Prices move constantly in response to supply and demand, reflecting the shifting views of thousands of participants.
But in practice, the experience of using them often feels remarkably similar to gambling.
You log into an app.
You place a wager on an uncertain outcome.
You watch the price move in real time.
You feel the rush when you’re right and the frustration when you’re wrong.
From the brain’s perspective, the distinction between gambling and speculation may be less meaningful than we like to believe.
The underlying mechanism is dopamine. Wins trigger a chemical reward. Losses create the urge to win it back. Psychologists have spent decades studying these feedback loops in casinos. More concerning is that the same neurological patterns appear in speculative financial behavior.
Source: Facebook
This is why experts increasingly warn that the rapid growth of digital betting and prediction platforms may have broader social consequences.
Problem gambling has been rising in the United States, particularly among young men. Studies suggest that roughly three-quarters of individuals with gambling disorders also experience depression, and about half report significant anxiety. The financial effects can also be measurable. Research has found that credit scores tend to decline modestly in states where online sports betting becomes widely available. At the same time, banks have warned about rising credit-card balances tied to digital gambling activity.
Technology hasn’t changed the psychology. It has changed the scale. Gambling once required effort. You had to drive to a casino, visit a sportsbook, or make a phone call to a bookmaker. Today, the barriers are almost nonexistent.
Speculation used to require friction. Placing a risky bet meant either going somewhere in person or calling someone. Now the same behavior can happen instantly on a smartphone. The disappearance of that friction may be one of the most important financial developments of the digital era.
And it isn’t limited to sports betting.
The range of events people can now wager on has expanded dramatically. Prediction markets allow participants to speculate on economic data releases, political outcomes, weather patterns, or even niche cultural events. At the same time, financial markets themselves have evolved to accommodate a growing appetite for rapid, high-risk trades.
This is where the conversation moves beyond gambling and into something deeper.
David Bahnsen recently described this shift as the “gamification” of markets. The concern is not merely that people speculate. Speculation has always existed. The problem arises when the investment itself begins to resemble entertainment.
Bahnsen points to a broader cultural backdrop for this phenomenon. In 1985, media critic Neil Postman warned that society was “amusing ourselves to death.” Television, he argued, was turning serious public discourse into spectacle and entertainment. Today’s digital ecosystem has taken that dynamic to an entirely new level.
The modern attention economy runs on constant stimulation. Social media feeds refresh endlessly. Short videos compete for our attention. Notifications arrive every few minutes. In a culture conditioned for speed, novelty, and entertainment, it was perhaps inevitable that financial markets would evolve in the same direction… and now they have.
Trading platforms increasingly emphasize immediacy and engagement. Online communities celebrate speculative trading as a shared social experience. New financial products, such as zero-day-to-expiration options (0DTE), which expire on the same day they are traded, allow investors to take positions that last for hours rather than years.
iStock.com/:jacoblund
I remember teaching retirement planning workshops at corporations in the Akron area in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I would often ask whether any class participants or their parents had bought stock in companies. Inevitably, a few hands would go up, and I would ask, “How long have they held your stocks?” Most participants bought the stocks and held them in perpetuity. These were long-term investments measured in years.
Today, many speculators measure their investment success in days or even hours. The language of investing itself has begun to shift. Markets are discussed like games. Winning trades are celebrated like victories. Losses are framed as part of the thrill.
None of this means that investing itself has become gambling. Long-term investing remains one of the most effective ways for individuals to build wealth. Capital markets still play their essential role in allocating resources, funding businesses, and supporting economic growth.
But when the cultural mindset around markets begins to change, the consequences can ripple outward. When speculation becomes entertainment, trading activity tends to accelerate. When trading accelerates, volatility often follows. Study after study shows how this often ends badly. Investors often make poor choices when they act on emotion rather than long-term investment principles. This tends to compound in the wrong direction, leading to poor outcomes.
As the Stones themselves put it:
Oh, my, my, my, I'm the lone crap shooter,
playin' the field ev'ry night.
History offers plenty of reminders of how these dynamics can unfold. In the late 1920s, observers noted that ordinary citizens were abandoning traditional work to spend their days watching the stock ticker. The technology was different, but the underlying psychology was familiar: the lure of easy money and the thrill of the trade.
Human nature hasn’t changed much since then. But the technology that amplifies it certainly has. For the first time in history, millions of people can participate in speculative markets twenty-four hours a day, with instant feedback, social reinforcement, and almost no barriers to entry.
As Keith and Mick told us:
Baby, get it straight,
You got to roll me and call me the tumblin' (dice),
Roll me and call me the tumblin' (Got to roll me.) dice.
Got to roll me. Got to roll me
The dice are always rolling.
And increasingly, the same behavioral forces driving the explosion in sports betting and prediction markets are appearing in places we once thought were different.
Financial markets. Trading apps. Options markets where billions of dollars change hands in contracts that expire before the day is over.
Different platforms.
Different labels.
But often the same instincts.
Which raises an uncomfortable question for investors:
When speculation becomes frictionless, and entertainment becomes the dominant cultural currency, what happens when that mentality reaches Wall Street itself?
That question is becoming harder to ignore. And it may explain why the modern market sometimes looks less like an investing arena — and more like a casino floor.
That’s where we’ll pick up the story in Part Two. Because understanding the intersection of technology, psychology, and markets has never been more important as we continue “Moving Life Forward.”
© 2025 Jesse Hurst
Senior Wealth Manager
Related Content
The views stated are not necessarily the opinion of Cetera and should not be construed directly or indirectly as an offer to buy or sell any securities mentioned herein. Due to volatility within the markets mentioned, opinions are subject to change without notice. Information is based on sources believed to be reliable; however, their accuracy or completeness cannot be guaranteed. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Neither Cetera Advisors LLC nor any of its representatives may give legal or tax advice. This information is not intended as tax or legal advice. Please consult legal or tax professionals for specific information regarding your individual situation.
Investors cannot directly invest in indices.
Featured Blog Image Source: iStock.com/Nina Shatirishvili