I think it's both a cause of and a symptom of the middle class disappearing.
Part of the compulsion towards gambling and lotteries is this sense that there's no other viable path upwards from where you are.
If you can't even imagine a reasonable chance of success from starting a small business, finding a better job, going back to school, or some other healthy path towards security and prosperity, then literally rolling the dice starts to seem like the most tangible (if unlikely) path towards wealth.
People gamble when they believe they don't have any better opportunities to spend their meager amount of discretionary income on.
(Of course, there is a separate compulsion towards gambling that is more a direct mental illness like alcoholism. But if you see a large-scale rise in gambling, I think you need to look for societal causes.)
To me this is more about our reduced attention span than no upward mobility. People want instant returns now and cannot imagine building their wealth slowly. The middle class is at the top of this since they have the money to invest.
This is the most boomer response. The idea of a long horizon to build your wealth against implies some faith in the future, which a lot of younger people no longer (righfully) believe in. But for a lot of the working public it seems a lot like they will not get to benefit from a future promised to them, and so have no stock in trying to work with the system to believe in it.
I think it's both a cause of and a symptom of the middle class disappearing.
Part of the compulsion towards gambling and lotteries is this sense that there's no other viable path upwards from where you are.
If you can't even imagine a reasonable chance of success from starting a small business, finding a better job, going back to school, or some other healthy path towards security and prosperity, then literally rolling the dice starts to seem like the most tangible (if unlikely) path towards wealth.
People gamble when they believe they don't have any better opportunities to spend their meager amount of discretionary income on.
(Of course, there is a separate compulsion towards gambling that is more a direct mental illness like alcoholism. But if you see a large-scale rise in gambling, I think you need to look for societal causes.)