The Casino Mentality in Modern Markets | The Acquirer's Multiple®

During their recent episode, Taylor, Carlisle, and Dan Rasmussen discussed The Casino Mentality in Modern Markets. Here’s an excerpt from the episode:

Dan: I wonder too if it’s not like so many things in life, the presence of cell phones, that it’s just fun to trade.

Jake: Like, activity and gambler.

Dan: People like gambling. Look at FanDuel or DraftKings. People like to gamble, and it turns out you can gamble on the stock market and it turns out that unlike these other markets right now it appears that you can actually make money gambling in the stock market. I think that’s a lot of what’s driving. It’s just fun. People just like it. They enjoy it. They go on their phones, they get a dopamine kick and they hold it or they buy a single day option or they buy, and buy for a month or a week. I think a lot of that is happening.

Jake: I try not to get on soapbox too often, but I’m relatively troubled by this gambling impulse and degenerate gambling that we see– We’ve really normalized it. I think it’s not a credit to our species to allow this kind of behavior. I think Munger would be quite upset with this level of casino like mentality that has crept into anywhere that it can get into.

Dan: Yeah. There’s no question it’s a vice, and I think there’s also no question that probably the people that get addicted to it are the people that can least afford to get addicted to it. And so, I think it’s predatory as well.

Jake: Yeah, there is almost a– You can see a path from a feeling of nihilism that eff it. I might as well try to double down over and over again, because it blows up. It wasn’t going to happen for me anyway, right?

Dan: Right.

Tobias: There’s a bit of a hangover from the poker boom in the early 2000s. That seems to have gone away now. But I remember there was a guy who did a– He did a trek across America after he blew up all of his poker winnings, lost all of his money. And so, to a tone, he had this sign and dragged it across the entirety of America, and it made news for a little while. It was like a–

Jake: Like a Haj? [laughs]

Tobias: Yeah, something like that. So, he would remind himself. I wonder what that guy’s doing now. He’s probably–

Dan: He’s now on Robinhood.

Tobias: He’s got a lot of FARTCOIN.

[laughter]

Jake: I’m back, baby.

Dan: His P&L was up 200% last year.

Tobias: Yeah.

Jake: Yeah, he crushed everybody.

Tobias: 200%, that wouldn’t even register. People are thousands of percent. It cuts both ways though.

Jake: You are seeing the victory lap tweets are back, right?

Tobias: Yeah, portfolio. It’s my portfolio.

Jake: That’s usually not a good sign. It got quiet in 2022, and now it’s back in 2024 and 2025.

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