- February 10, 2026
- Gambling
The convergence of online gambling platforms and prediction markets is blurring the lines of what is considered “traditional gambling.” Join PhD candidate and sociologist Ryan Fajardo and Shane as they explore and discuss how these platforms have the potential to disrupt our definition of gambling.
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RYAN
There is this sort of tension between you know, luck, entertainment, skill and analysis that exists in sports betting, which makes it distinct from a lot of other forms of gambling.
SHANE
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Wager Danger. I’m your host, Shane Cook. Gambling disorder program director at Gateway Foundation. And my guest on this episode is Ryan Fajardo.
Ryan is a PhD candidate in sociology at Northwestern University. And unlike the psychologists we’ve had conversations with who focus on an individual’s gambling behavior.
Ryan studies the macro societal forces that have the potential to shape an individual’s gambling behavior. As part of our conversation, we’ll explore why sports betting sells itself as both entertainment and skilled analysis, why prediction markets argue they’re not gambling at all, even though they function identically, and how this shift in perception has triggered a massive renegotiation of what we even consider gambling.
Ryan, welcome to the show.
RYAN
Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
SHANE
Absolutely excited to have you. Tell us a little bit about where you are. I know you’re you’re a PhD candidate at Northwestern University. And tell us how you got involved in field of study that you’re in and you’re pursuing right now. And at a high level, some of the projects that you’re working on.
RYAN
Absolutely.
I’m a PhD candidate at Northwestern University in the sociology department. PhD candidate this, you know, academia has its own language for that. What that means is that I’m currently, researching and writing my dissertation, which is the final step, towards receiving a doctorate.
And so I started, to develop, possible topics of interest, we’re noticing a sea change in the gambling landscape. Particularly with the emergence of online sports betting.
I was really interested in, you know, thinking about this change which was brought on by the repeal of PASPA the Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act, which then sort of unleashed this, legal change in gambling.
it’s the first form of online gambling that we’ve seen the United States. And it’s a subject of a lot of moral concern.
And so I was interested in how various different, you might call them stakeholders or, organizations in the sports betting markets, but sports betting world, try to make sense of this new activity.
my research is focused on talking, to the various different interested parties. And that might be the sports, betting operators, right, who are developing new ways to bet on sports that that were not previously talking to legislators and regulators to think about where their interests and concerns and, you know, promoting the social welfare of of their citizens and also talking to problem gambling, clinician specialists, and to think about how online gambling and sports betting changes the way that they understand and perceive and, and, gambling use disorders or addiction and subsequently treat it. And, you know, I do that through interviews. I did that through, what referred to as ethnography. So, you know, being in the spaces where people are discussing it, and what I’m focused on primarily is thinking through what are you might say, ideal forms of conduct.
So what what is healthy, acceptable online sports betting look like, you know, how do we define what that means? And there, of course, you know that that definition is a negotiation that happens among these different parties and their different interests. So that’s sort of the focus of what I’m interested in. And that has led to a number of different paths.
And one of that is considering this, distinction that often comes up between luck and chance and skill and analysis that we see in sports betting.
SHANE
just the take a step back a lot of time. A lot of the guests that we’ve had on the, program have a background in psychology or, in gambling disorder, counseling, things like that, that gets very personal. Whereas in sociology, you’re looking you’re taking the macro view of the world, right? And how society intertwines with the individual and how that actually can, steer behavior in one way or another.
RYAN
the main difference between my perspective, my area of study, and theirs is, that they are looking at the individual, the individual person as sort of the starting point. And you know, where they’re trying to find answers for various behaviors. So you might be looking at inside the mind that, you know, neurochemistry or certain patterns of thoughts, to explain some of the behaviors, whether it’s, you know, problem gambling or just, you know, gambling behaviors, generally, a sociologist, as you, as you said, is trying to look for those answers at the sort of group levels, as a group level.
So, you know, we argue, a sociologist that when people come together in various different groups and they’ll develop these, you know, certain rules and norms about how they conduct themselves, which, then shape our individual behaviors. Often those norms and rules can kind of seem, to come from the outside. And so, you know, disciplining or shaping a person or in their behavior. So an example of this might be, the, the role of religion in relationship with, gambling, you know, in American history. So for many decades, gambling was, illegal. And often a lot of that, the impetus, it seems, for that, that legal stance was, religious beliefs about the morality of gambling, that it was seen as deceitful by, religious leaders, by pastors and priests, and that engaging in it would, you know, corrupt the soul, etc.. So in a sense, we yeah, we have, you know, a group of you know, the beliefs of, you know, religion. And they’re the people who are, like, supporting those institutions, sort of enforcing this view and role rules regarding gambling, to legislatures and then also individuals. So then, you know, individuals have this perspective of that, you know.
SHANE
So but you yeah, you bring up an interesting point because I, you know, when, when you take a step back and you think about, I mean, people have been on this marble for quite a bit of time, thousands of years. And it seems to me that the game, if I look at gambling as a particular discipline as it relates to sociology, it’s gone through a lot of changes over that time period where, you know, there have been periods of time where it’s widely accepted.
And then you probably have an overcorrection at some point due to, you know, whatever, power structure may be at play in society at a particular time. Is that what you’re talking about here?
RYAN
Yeah, absolutely. You know, as a sociologist, we’re really attuned to, history, economic, political, cultural history. And, yeah, that, you know, what we kind of argue is that a lot of of different concepts, institutions, activities which we take for granted have not always looked the same. And that’s certainly the case for gambling. What was seen as gambling or sin is permissible. Has changed throughout, history. And so that is a component of, my, my research, my dissertation, which takes the, emergence of online sports betting, as an example of that sort of shifting definition. Right. So, you know, sports betting has erupted, blown up in the past seven years. But for decades, the United States was, was, either, you know, explicitly illegal or, like, operate in sort of this gray zone. You know, in particular the thing about the, Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act, which was federal law 2018, the Supreme Court removed it, and then suddenly that was up to the states. And what was then, you know, seen for decades as an illegal activity suddenly became emerged. And, you know, now we have developing rules and. Right, new rules and regulation that govern sports betting.
And, you know, and it’s online form. So what I’m as a sociologist, I’m interested in is, you know, how do we make those decisions at a, at the sort of, organizational level. So a lot of people will be doing what I do is speak to politicians, regulators, those and sports betting companies to understand how they make sense of these big changes.
SHANE
Okay. so your research and what, your efforts lend themselves to is shaping public policy
whether it’s a state level or, you know, kind of a larger level, across the, you know, it could be municipality, could be state level, could be federal level. How these government entities interact with the legalization of gambling and how it affects the individual.
RYAN
Yeah. And that would also include, you know, those are these are the formal written rules, right? Okay. So a lot of, let’s say, unwritten rules that these companies, you know, abide by you kind of, you know, you get a sense of their, you know, industry rules and regulations that they sort of self-police, you know, you get a sense of how they market their products.
And that gives you an idea of like how they’re imagining people will use for.
SHANE
Interesting.
RYAN
Spending as well. Yeah.
SHANE
Okay. You hit on you hit on something there that I’d love to explore a little bit more. Here is how these products are marketed, to individuals and any kind of structure or framework that exists there to, exact some level of control of how these products and how gambling in general is marketed to individuals. Because, I think a lot of people have a genuine concern about the messages that are getting through to, young adults.
Maybe young adults who are not yet of legal age to participate, things like that. What what has your studies uncovered for you in that arena?
RYAN
That in part, I think what is what drew me into this, topic. Because what we see, you know, it’s it’s a conflict. It’s very, messy, as I would say. Right. How how sports betting is marketed towards, individuals.
Sports betting is an activity, you know, it’s based on the, speculation of future outcomes, sporting outcomes, right. Where we’re at, asking people to predict who’s going to win the next game, who’s going to be the championship, the MVP, whatever it might be.
it’s unlike you’d say roulette or slots, right. And in those instances there’s sort of just like a, a machine that’s telling it’s random and it’s saying, you know, you win or you lose, right?
And in sports betting, there’s this element of analysis, and that’s, that’s like its appeal. Right? It’s like, you’re right. You want to be right. You want to. And, you know, this is an activity tapped into American culture about, you know, sports. All right. And so people have a lot of information on sports. They watch sports. And then there’s this.
So it combines these elements of luck and chance. in gambling which make it kind of makes it makes it difficult. It’s appeal. But then it’s also, you know, it’s sort of the troubling aspect in some aspects, because often, you know, we’ll talk to problem gambling specialists, you know, they want they want this, sports betting to be marketed as a form of entertainment.
Which you are guaranteed over time to, to lose money, but at the same time, there is this informational, analytical aspect that exists, and is undeniable. And, you know, there are professional sports bettors out there and, you know, the 0.001%, who have, you know, and, capabilities and analysis, far beyond me. Me are you, that exist? So there is this sort of really tension between you know, luck, entertainment, skill and analysis that exists in sports betting, which makes it distinct from a lot of other forms of gambling.
And, you know, we can see that it’s often marketed in that way, right? From these companies. At certain points, it’s entertainment and fun. Another point, it’s about, money making and skill analysis.
SHANE
Yeah. and, the marketing kind of reflects that. I think there’s two sides. When you look at the marketing, there is that skill. Even though we know that there’s a there’s still a huge amount of chance involved,
But there’s also, in addition to that, that particular risk factor, there’s an element of understanding what statistics are. And I think the majority of people that are casual fans of sports betting are not necessarily well versed in the statistical aspects at work here.
RYAN
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you see differences in across marketing. And I think it’s reflected also in the differences, you know, and among the people who gamble, who bet on sports. Right. And, you know, estimates vary. But I think recent, show that 20% of all American adults, you know, have an active a calendar within the last year, on sports betting.
there’s millions and millions of people right now who have millions and millions of who have many different approaches to the sports betting. Yeah, some of them are this sort of entertainment focused, fun. Others they might take more seriously an attempt to make money. And so it’s really a, yeah, a lot of competing different ideas about what sports betting is, how it’s defined by either the marketing or by its consumer base, which make it.
very contentious, especially in, this day and age.
SHANE
Right. So if you had to look forward, where do you where do you see us headed?
maybe that prediction is, is based a little bit on historical look backs, and potentially where we might see sports betting heading in the future.
RYAN
it seems like there is an increasing appetite for, to engage in permissible, risky financial, activities. Sports betting is one example, right?
But we can think of a number of different things that seemingly blur the line, between, you know, the most outright undeniable forms of gambling and other forms of like, speculation on, on outcomes. So there might be some.
SHANE
Day trading for example.
RYAN
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. We have people, you know, obviously, either from the financial institutions to, from gaming specialists. I think, you know, is this a form of gambling? And they’re asking that question. Right.
Cryptocurrency, another element to where very volatile assets and and nothing really underlying that, you know, value besides, you know, just pure speculation about whether it’s gonna go up or down.
00;14;44;01 – 00;15;09;12
RYAN
That’s another area of concern. And, you know, another one that has emerged obviously is, prediction markets. Right, which are they’re all unique animal. So these are all activities which I’ll be, you know, I would say, you know, a minority of individuals, participate in America, in the American economy, but certainly are popular among younger people, younger, younger men in particular. And, you know, as time goes on, perhaps they’ll just increase in, popularity. But yeah, we see, I guess, a regulatory environment that seems to allow these things to continue. And, you know, where it goes next, I imagine, you know, there would be allowed to continue.
SHANE
Yeah. Well, let’s talk about prediction markets a little bit, because I think this is this is something maybe a lot of people are not familiar with, but they’re becoming very popular. And many of these platforms exist on a, on a worldwide basis. So what what can you tell us about the prediction markets and why they’re one, why they’re so fascinating?
And number two, what draws people to them.
RYAN
I think they’re it’s a, an excellent counterpoint to the sports betting example, because if you like I said, you know, if you think about how sports betting market themselves, particularly to financial investors, to state, legislators and regulators, I’ll say we’re entertainment. We’re here, we’re competing with movie dollars and TV dollars and, sports dollars.
I mean, obviously they go out and often tell other people and the consumers it’s a way to make money, but usually they’re pretty entertainment forward.
Well, prediction markets, alternatively come from a much more, strictly information financial, analytical, world. That’s like the the discourse surrounding of them is a centered not entertainment, but an information, so to speak.
So it’s turn and I’ll get into the offering an excellent sort of way to think through this
dichotomy that we encounter in sports betting with between luck and chance and, you know, skill and analysis. So prediction markets, they originated the idea originates in the like the late 20th century.
Essentially they take the lessons that economists, sort of developed theories that developed in financial markets, into a wide variety of different outcomes.
So, on the stock market, right? We have, stock prices that go up and down, and there and, you know, economists very economists think that the price of a stock sort of is, you know, efficient and that it’s able to that the individuals who are participating in the market, if they have an incentive to participate, and if enough people are able to participate that they can come to like a true, accurate reflection of the value of that stock.
So it’s sort of saying that like the market is gathering information and helping us come up with an appropriate and fair, price of of a company stock. It’s taking that concept and then applying it to a variety of different future outcomes. So the most common example would be like, political outcomes.
So you’ll often see prediction markets being spoke about, in regards to presidential elections, 2024 recently, there was rule changes and a very different companies were legally allowed to offer, individuals a trade quote, unquote, the outcome of the 2024 election. And so the thought there is, if we get enough people who are worth with putting, their money where their mouth is, so to speak, they’re, they’re, you know, analyzing, collecting information about the political, about the campaigns.
And then they’re, you know, putting money to those beliefs. We’ll come to an, quote unquote more accurate, reflection of what might happen in the future.
And in the case of 2024, most prediction markets showed Trump with a, you know, gave Trump better odds than, Kamala, which was counter to what a lot of the polling was showing. And obviously a Trump won the election. So they seem to be, you know, validated. Yeah. That way. That’s that’s sort of the the origins in the defense, I guess, of of of prediction markets.
SHANE
Sure. So, that’s interesting though, because you we have separate cottage industry that exists, when it comes to politics for poll making and what you’ve, what you’ve just mentioned here destroys the poll making, side of the house where, you know, perhaps they’re not working with the best information. You pull it back to a broader, platform in this prediction market, and they’re able to estimate or predict better than poll makers. Is that is that a fair assessment or.
RYAN
You have people who will argue? Yeah. I mean, I’m not, you know, not as statustician. So I can’t crunch the numbers about and assess the efficiency. I mean, yeah, I mean a poll maker would say there’s arguments. You know I can give regurgitate the arguments for and against. The poll maker would say, you know we’re collecting information from a representative sample.
So we’re going out and find, you know, of, of likely voters based on gender or, you know, any education level, any sort of imagined, anything, any demographic that had influence over voting, the people who are on who are trading money on, prediction markets are a particular type of, you know, they’re not representative of the entire population.
Right? Okay. You know, a poller would say the the these markets can kind of maybe distort because you’re not really getting a representative demographic. But then at the same time, people and people are pretty sure as to say that these polls aren’t, you know, who cares about what they’re saying unless, you know, if you put money towards the those commitments to those ideas, then perhaps you come to a better reflection of what, information is, analysis of information.
SHANE
Well, it’s certainly just anecdotally, I’ve noticed that prediction markets are, infiltrating pop culture in a lot of ways, too.
Recently I watched the Golden Globes. Hey, watch the whole thing, but I watch part of it. And they were they were showing Polymarket. Yeah. And over here that that’s one of the platforms for predict prediction.
It’s one prediction marketplace that exists. And they were, laying odds on who’s going to win based on how people were wagering on these, prediction markets. So in Poly Market in this case, so Are we going to see more and more influence of these prediction markets in pop culture and things that were, you know, we wouldn’t have necessarily associated with gambling, so to speak, in the past. But, it’s becoming part of the every day experience, in pop culture.
RYAN
And I think to to answer that question, you know, we have to take a, take a step back and think, and, and consider how, these different companies are able to sort of offer their, their, their markets, such so widely. And we have to trace that back to a number of, sort of technical regulatory aspects.
So, it might be helpful just to kind of talk a little bit about how one engages with, prediction market. So, sure, a prediction market, you know, if you go on to one of these sites like Kalshi or Poly Market, you’ll be confronted with a variety of different quote unquote markets, all of which center on different questions.
You know, one might be who’s going to win the 2024 election or who might win Best Picture at the Oscars. Right. So you go, you let’s say you click on, you know, there’s also sports contracts that we’ll talk more about, I’m sure. But you know, there’s next week will be the, Super Bowl. Right. And they’ll be between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots.
So if you click on, you know who the question of who will the market for who will win the Super Bowl.
You know so there’s two competitors and you can either say buy a contract that guess the Seattle Seahawks will win the Super Bowl or no, the Seattle Seahawks will not win the Super Bowl, that the price of that contract will be something between 0 and $1. Okay. That price is meant to, like reflect a percentage of, like, percentage of, like likelihood that’s going to happen.
So right now, if you go on to Kalshi, the price for Seattle Seahawks winning Super Bowls 0.68 $0.68. So it’s sort of a 68%, likelihood it’s how they would they would want you to interpret it. Okay. So if I bought one contract for $0.68 and yes, the Seattle Seahawks will win the Super Bowl and next week comes and they do win the Super Bowl, I will receive a dollar for every contract I purchase.
So I bought bought in at $0.68 and I received a dollar. Right. So then I received 32 $0.72. I actually received $0.32 back. Because how does Kalshi or Poly Market make money. There’s transaction fees that they sort of skim off the top right. So I won’t receive all of that money back. I receive some of course, if I chose the the wrong outcome, if I said no, the Seattle Seahawks, won’t win.
And then they do win. I will just, you know, I lose that money, you know, they’re saying that what they’re doing is not gambling. How is this different from a sportsbook like FanDuel or DraftKings? So under in FanDuel and DraftKings, an individual makes a bet they can once again make a similar bet.
It’s the Seahawks going to win the Super Bowl. I’m not sure what the the author is in odds phones, but when they made that bet, they’re sort of making a contract with FanDuel themselves. FanDuel has put up the money to ensure that they’re able. They’ll be able to, you know, pay out if they, you know, I got the bet, right.
So it’s the classic sort of better house scenario, right? Where, yeah. I’m I’m contracting with FanDuel, and they have the money in some bank account somewhere, right. On the prediction market. What they’re saying is like, we’re not we’re not the House. We don’t have the money behind that like FanDuel does. What we’re doing is we’re actually connecting,
end users themselves.
So, when I buy a yes contract, there is someone on the other end who’s buying a no contract. So these are exchanges, is what they’re saying. And these are inter that Kalshi and Polymarket are intermediaries, who are finding people who want to engage in this whatever, activity. And they’re just simply connecting them.
SHANE
Yeah.
RYAN
So these aren’t in their view, like they would argue. These aren’t sports betting in the traditional sense, but rather these are, exchanges and these are futures contracts and therefore they’re not a form of gambling, which in, according to the United States Constitution, as delineated by the United States Constitution, matter of state law. Rather, it is a it’s, federal it’s a financial instrument that is governed by federal law in particular the CFTC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and therefore they don’t they, you know, the state law of Illinois, they don’t have to get a license from some Illinois in order to offer their, prediction markets in the state of Illinois. Okay, which all of the sports, sportsbooks do need to. So all that’s to say is there is changes in how the CFTC looked at,
These markets in 2024. And because of that, they essentially it seemed like was open, open season and all these different markets started to move in, and really real and market there themselves off.
Yeah. And that’s why. Yeah. Yeah. There you see so many different partnerships.
SHANE
Okay. So help me understand the prediction markets in general. is is anybody allowed to kind of put a bet out there like can you, you know from your community say for example, the flight from, the UK to San Francisco is going to land on time or within a certain time frame, you know, maybe it’s ten minutes plus or minus.
RYAN
Yeah, it’s a great question. Because it really kind of gets down to the essence of, you know, how are these frictions, how how are bets made? How, what what makes a good bet? What makes a good, exchange, a good market? So on these different sites, essentially, yes. Like kalshi or poly market, they, their team, has to create the market. There’s some infrastructure that needs to be built, and that process of offering has to go to some, some regulation.
But, you know, often what they’ll have is the, you know, individual members and or users will suggest, market. So what makes, an appropriate, market? I’ll say this to two things. I mean, one is that the outcome has to be, discrete. It has to be, definitive and recognizable. Maybe it’s a better way to say, which is, you know, let’s why I think sports is such a good. It’s so it’s so easy to make bets on sports is because there’s an official scorer. A lot of the events are sort of undeniable. So, like someone hitting a homerun, and now it’s one zero.
It’s very clear when the, you know, you win the bet, someone will hit a homerun, or someone will score a point, or a team will score a point. That’s why I think, you know, sports is is a good, so rife with with betting because the outcomes are very, very clear.
And so that’s the same thing when we talk about, you know, different types of markets, you know, how much will it rain in New York City, I think, or like, what’s the recorded temperature in in Alaska?
Those are markets that I think do a exist in different places. You know, there’s a national weather. They’ll define where they’re getting their information from the National Weather Service. And for their day, they’ll have their official report. This is how what the temperature high was, this was how much rain they received, etc., etc.. So yeah, what makes a good market is one that’s sort of recognizable and definitive.
I think the Maduro example, where someone you know, they put a bet on whether or not we’ll go to war, the United will go to war with Venezuela. They invalidated that bet because they said, well, what the U.S government, armed forces did did not constitute an invasion.
SHANE
Sure.
RYAN
And that was not the best market. Right. Because it’s like, well, what does it mean to invade you know, that’s its own slippery. Like who who knows. We have political scientists writing, you know, thousands, thousands of pages, you know, on that. So that’s one element. The other element I think is important, which, you know, is that you need someone on the other side of, of the market. So you know, I will say I want to make a market where today there will be a fire truck going down my street, and I’m willing to sell, you know, 10,000 yes, contracts, whatever. If no one else is interested in in that making, you know, engaging in that, then it’s not really a good market, right. Because so it needs to have like liquidity. There needs to be money, there needs to be interest. you can’t just offer anything because then no one else will engage with it.
So you need to find something that’s definitive that we can say clearly who who, wins the who is correct in predicting. And the other thing that we need to have is, you know, interest, money, flowing.
SHANE
Okay. how much money are we talking about being wagered in a particular month?
RYAN
that’s a great question. We can take, for example, Kalshi, which, probably says right now the most visible, most popular, prediction market. So, so the sort of 30 day previous 30 days, Kalshi, we’re looking at about $8.4 billion traded. So that’s traded on the site. So that’s sort of let me exchange among users.
It’s like the handle on sports and sports betting. So the prediction markets are taking 8.4. They’re skimming off the top of their transaction fees. But that’s the amount of money that’s that’s sort of, that these companies are seeing.
SHANE
And I would expect that that’s only continuing to rise as more and more people are familiar with these markets.
RYAN
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s.
SHANE
The same pattern we’ve seen with with sports betting here in the United States. like for Illinois, for example, the handle on sports betting routinely now surpasses $1 billion a month and it only took I’m not even sure it took a year for that monthly handle to reach that.
RYAN
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they weren’t doing a $8.4 billion a year ago. And, you know, certainly. So yeah, it’s exploding. And so, yeah, if we compare it to handle, the sports betting handle, that’s a good example. So I, and I have some stats here for legal sports betting 2025. The, across the U.S., handle seems to be around $115 billion.
There’s some seasonality to that, but on average, $9.45 billion per month.
So yes, it seems like the prediction markets are, see, you know, you’re seeing total arrival in pure numbers. I mean, it’s another it’s a different question, a little bit of like, will they compete, with sports books and how how are they competing with sports books, at least for now, I believe there’s, you know, stats looking at like, New York that the FanDuel, DraftKings, they continue their their handle continues to grow in that state.
And that would seemed even during when Kalshi is in these different markets are expanding. So that would seem to suggest that they’re still there. A lot of what the prediction markets are doing is outside of, of a lot of these states where there’s sportsbooks who have this, you know, sort of lock on, on the sports outcomes.
Right? But still definitely a rapid growth. And, you know, how will they compete in the future and will they be competing, more, you know, one on head on, head to head. Yeah.
SHANE
Yeah. Well, I mean, it’d be interesting to dig in a little bit and understand the profile of the people that are participating and. Yeah, prediction markets for sports betting. I would I would assume that there’s a subset that overlaps between the two, but maybe we’re talking about two different, you know, two totally different populations that are engaging that.
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I, I mean, at this point in time we have like probably no data to really make that, because of the just the recency of these prediction markets and. Right. Yeah. But perhaps yeah, depending you know, I think most people would say that it’s by like state, but yeah, what are the profiles.
RYAN
And perhaps they’re just different demographic or cultural factors that differentiate them.
SHANE
would expect that your field is wide open for study, and how that impacts our world going forward. where do you see, your focus, in the future,
RYAN
I think that, you know, often what, you know, people in my position will go on to different careers in academia, which would be a, a strong component in research as well.
Certainly there is a, a need for, really rigorous research regarding how individuals are engaging with these various products. There’s $1 billion, every week, perhaps every day just flowing across the country. And how are people using these, different products? And, like, what influences how they use these products is certainly, a question that needs to be answered and discussed.
And that’s something that I’m really passionate about. So, and know, like I said, you know, that we have a lot of great research and, terms of, psychology in terms of neuroscience, in the gambling space. And but not so much, I would say, and sociology, but we all rightly, that recognize that these different factors affect individuals use it.
So yeah, part of like a good a big question that I’m really interested in is if we’re thinking about, these different times in American, history and American history, you know what what, motivates individuals, within their life history, within their economic circumstances, to engage in these various different, activities that, you know, people who might be a little bit older would say that that seems risky.
It seems are certain, factors or, conditions that lead, individuals, particularly young men, to engage in them in ways that are puzzling to the rest of society so that those are big questions. I think that, you know, require an analysis at a sociological level as well as a, psychological individual level.
SHANE
So if you were to kind of capture the in-between space and how those two come together,
what does that look like?
RYAN
an important lesson that, you know, most sociology students learn 101, perhaps day one of their class. Right, is that, What we’re trying to determine is the space between, like, individual, experience, individual troubles and social problems. the individual levels, you know, we have an individual, people go through different things in their life.
They have different, they’re different processes, different ways of thinking about the world. But then they’re also connected to we see them, you know, these trends and patterns, repeat themselves throughout history across time.
So I think it’s really about. Trying to meld those two different perspectives together. From my perspective, I would say that what really needs to happen with sociology, at least, is to think a little bit often.
A lot of our solutions, a lot of our, what we propose are very much, grand scale. Right? It’s about like creating new financial regulation, etc. that isn’t, accessible to the everyday as a clinician or problem gambling, specialists. So for me at least, what I’ve been trying to think through was a little bit of like how to connect these larger study of, of so, of society, and the state of affairs, and to make a little more direct impacts into how individuals at every level of, of the problem gambling space.
Yeah. How to inform their work. And that’s sort of the struggle, at least from my, my discipline, which is not perhaps not the case with, psychologists and clinicians. It’s literally it’s the opposite where it’s, immediately, accessible, I think, to a lot of, clinicians. But, sometimes loses, you know, what does that mean when we’re talking about millions of people, demographics and groups?
SHANE
Sure. All right. Very interesting. Before we depart, I always give a guest one opportunity. Is there something you wanted to talk about that we didn’t?
I guess something you might want to reiterate even.
RYAN
Yeah, I would reiterate that, the the our definitions, you know, there there are just common everyday parlance is definitions of words. Right? We we all know what gambling is. It’s,
putting something, a value on a chance outcome to gain more. And that makes sense in our everyday lives. But when we talk about gambling at a social level or really talking about is, you know, the vast industry, institution networks of groups of people who are constantly debating these things.
What is problem gambling specialist clinicians, gambling operators, regulators, legislatures. And when that happens, things can get messy. And, they’re not so simple anymore. So what is gambling? And what other forms of, you know, speculation. Those things change over time. And what is important is that, in order to, to, you know, I think keep keep the, the separation that we think is, is healthy and good, that we’ve known for many decades.It’s important to continually, create structures, create regulation that protects consumers, and allows them to clearly understand what is risky and what is gambling and what is other sort, more secure financial investments. And a lot of these what we spoke about today in prediction markets or day trading or crypto seemed to really test that boundary.
And it’s important that I would say to it, the thing I would say is to urge at every level of government and regulatory bodies to try to, you know, come up with really definitive answers that protects consumers so that they understand which is which.
SHANE
All right. That’s perfect, Ryan, I appreciate it. Great having you as a guest. Once again, Ryan Fajardo, PhD candidate at Northwestern University. Best of luck to you. Ryan.
RYAN
Thank you so much for having me.
SHANE
Absolutely.
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