Gambling has well-documented negative consequences, including addiction, financial ruin, and severe mental health issues. The design of modern gambling platforms—whether for sports or financial markets—often incorporates gamification strategies that exacerbate these problems. These platforms are engineered to maximize user engagement, frequently at the expense of the users’ well-being.
Technology allows firms to use tailored push notifications about stock prices and other behavioral prompts to target individual investors and induce them to trade excessively. These technological advancements would be worrisome enough in their own right, but now the SEC is poised to allow stocks to trade around the clock. The use of advanced technologies that can help financial firms induce frequent trading by retail investors, combined with the ability of retail investors to trade at all hours of the day or night, has the potential to create retail trading addicts.
Better Markets is carefully examining issues related to AI, gambling, gamification, and extended trading hours in finance.
Examples of Better Markets Work on these Issues:
OP-ED in Fortune: The U.S. already has a gambling epidemic—24 hour stock trading, gamification, and AI could make it worse if regulators don’t act (12/16/24)
Around-the-Clock Trading Would Turn Securities Exchanges into Casinos (12/6/24)
