Polymarket and company have sophisticated gambling addiction to the point of making it indistinguishable from “investing”

Prediction markets are no longer a niche of the Internet and datanerds to become the new obsession of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi are receiving multi-billion dollar valuations by repackaging traditional bets as sophisticated financial instruments. The image that defines the moment occurred recently in Manhattan, according to Bloomberg: the patriarch of the New York Stock Exchange (70 years old, impeccable suit) closing a multimillion-dollar deal with the founder of Polymarket (27 years old, t-shirt and plastic bottle). That meeting sealed the fate of the sector: betting is no longer a game, it is finance. Why is it important. We are facing a radical cultural and regulatory change. By redefining bets as “event contracts”, these platforms try to circumvent gambling legislation (which in Spain would control Consumption) to sneak into the traditional financial system, with the support of giants such as the owners of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The panoramic. Kalshi is already worth $10 billion and Polymarket is looking for $12 billion. They are not beach bars, as we said, the owner of the NYSE has invested there. The hockey league (NHL) and Donald Trump’s media company are already signing deals. It is the traditional financial system embracing chance. It is, above all, legitimation. Semantic reengineering. Polymarket’s true success is not technological, it is linguistic. They have eliminated the stigma of the gambler by changing the dictionary: It’s not a bet. It’s an “investment.” It is not a betting house. It’s a “exchange of contracts”. You are not a gambler. you are a trader which analyzes “market sentiment.” An example of the absurdity of some cases: people betting by Elon Musk entering the race to be president of the United States, oblivious to the fact that Musk was born in South Africa and therefore cannot become president, since the US Constitution vetoes the presidency to foreigners. That is to say: all those bets are money thrown away from minute one. How it works. Instead of betting 50 euros on Trump winning, you buy a “share” of that result that is worth 1 dollar if you are right. This allows the same person who would win or lose money at roulette to now win or lose it in an app with stock market charts. Although the savings fly the same, the user feels smarter and less guilty: he believes that he is operating in something more similar to the IBEX, not in a casino. What’s coming. There is a civil war brewing. The old guard of the game (the owners of traditional casinos) see this as unfair competition. Jay Snowden, CEO of Penn Entertainment (a casino and sports betting company), has already warned: This is a direct threat to your industry. Prediction markets and games of chance overlap. In conclusion. Polymarket has managed to sophisticate gambling addiction for a generation that believes itself too smart to play games of chance. They have created the perfect casino for those who despise casinos, allowing them to risk savings under the illusion of doing financial analysis. In Xataka | Five years ago he worked from his bathroom on the brink of ruin. Today he runs a company valued at 8 billion Featured image | Hush Naidoo Jade PhotographyMockuuups Studio

Four -hour tails for the Labubu store in Barcelona illustrate that they are more than a fashion: they are an addiction

Labubu fever moves globally. In Spain it takes time being a phenomenon And this is certified by the opening of a new permanent store in Barcelona that already has four -hour tails and people traveling from other countries To buy in it. Pop mart, The Chinese company that manufactures these dolls Collectibles, has generated a millionaire business with inherited tactics of video games and bets. Phenomenon in Barcelona. The new Pop Mart, and only permanent in Spain (in November last year the brand opened A pop-up also in Barcelona), has opened in the portal of L’àngel, one of the main commercial arteries of the Catalan capital. The first day were seen tails of more than 200 meters and astronomical expenses: with prices that are between 12 and 240 euros, there are those who confess to having Inverted 700 euros in these dolls for being “an investment.” What are they? The Pop Mart are the dolls that the company of the same name manufactures and can be purchased Through its websitein specific stores such as this new one in Barcelona, and even in vending machines. They are divided into series of variants of the same doll, thus promoting collecting. His most successful product is Labubu, a creature with a monkey and disturbing smile. It is part of a broader collection called The Monsters, and generated last year 419 million dollars in benefits for Pop Mart. Massive success. The company was founded in 2000 and has ended up becoming one of China’s best known brands at the global level, with milestones such as its actions in 2024 They rose 370%. They even have their own attraction park in Beijing, Pop Land40 square kilometers. According to data from Time130 of the company’s 530 stores at the end of last year are outside China. In 2024, its benefits for international sales rose 375%. According to him The company itselfin 2024 it had benefits of 1.8 billion dollars, of which 40% came from outside China. The reasons for success. The first and most obvious is viral contagion in networks. It is obvious that there are more and more celebrities and influencers that show your labubusand it is usually pointed out as the initiator of the viral phenomenon to Lisa, from the K-Pop Blackpink group, Although now the dolls are in the hands of famous Americans and European such as Rihanna, Dua Lipa, Madonna or Kim Kardashian. Fever is such that they have already generated their own falsification marketwhich swarm for markets such as Wallapop, Milanuncios or Vinted, sometimes with swollen prices. However, beyond the imitation behavior of celebrities, there are other reasons for success: the gamification of the phenomenon. Little thing. The first step that Pop Mart takes to generate addiction is to generate shortage: there are no specimens of the doll, and take advantage of Pop Mart Mart. A small art that many Influencers They explain How to master social media accounts. As explained This Rolling Stone articlethe purchase process is already a maze of voluble rules tests and that include virtual dead ends in the store, and knowing how to enter the Store At the right time of the Just day (Pop Mart does not warn when the Restocks will be). The Labubus Gacha. The Pop Labubu Mart and the Gacha video games (In which random awards are paid with virtual coins, although in many cases the games have systems free-to-play) share the mechanics of random collecting, that is, they are steroid slots. Labubu They are sold in surprise boxes or Blind Boxeswhere buyers do not know exactly what figure they will receive. Labubu reward to the most constant (or fortunate) with “secret” unusual figures and the Gacha games have certain extremely difficult characters to obtain. Both systems are designed to generate addiction and compulsive purchase, with psychological manipulation through hidden probabilities (although today in video games They are regulated) and limited events. The key is to convert uncertainty into an entertainment experience for which consumers are willing to pay, creating a cycle of expectation, emotion and disappointment that drives to try again. Header | Dushawn Jovic in Unspash In Xataka | There is a 30 -euro doll over a lot of mobiles in Spain. Welcome to the fashion of the ‘Sonny Angel’

There are people so hooked to the AI ​​who are creating groups to alcoholics anonymous to overcome their addiction

We pass Many hours looking at the mobilelWe blame our lack of concentration And there are even studies that claim that They affect our memory. Until recently, the fault was almost exclusive to apps such as Instagram or Tiktok and his damn ‘Infinite Scroll’but now there is a new culprit: the AI. There are people so hooked to talk to chatbots that have even created help groups to leave it. What’s happening. There are more and more cases of people hooked to AI. There are those who admit to be Friends of a chatbot and even who They are paired with an AI. Although it is not the only one, one of the platforms that He is hooking his users is Character.AI. Here we can create a character to our liking and chat with him as if it were real. In 404 average They tell Nathan’s case, an 18 -year -old student who spent hours wake up with the characters he had created, to the point of preferring them before his real friends. And there are many more like him. Help groups. There are many people in a situation similar to Nathan’s. In Reddit there are several aid communities for people who want to stop using chatbots, how are you which has almost 900 members and is specifically focused on Character.AI users. There are also others such as Chatbotaddiction where members talk about their addictions to other IAS. In these groups, users share their progress by leaving their addiction counting the days that have sober either They look for support when they have a relapseas if they were alcoholics anonymous. But it goes beyond Reddit, the Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous It also includes AI addiction and offer online meetings for those affected. Chatbots want you to use them. Apps like Instagram or Tiktok are designed to spend as long as possible in them And the Chatbots IA also have their techniques so that we do not forget them. Recently, several consumer defense groups in the United States presented a Formal complaint against companies such as Character.AI for allowing the use of Therapy chatbots. In the text they detail the tactics of these platforms to make users use them again. In the case of Character.AIonce you have talked to a character, you start receiving emails to open a new conversation. The bombardment and the ease of falling again has made some users who want to leave it reach the point of Ask the company to block your IP address. A mirage. In This study by the MIT and OpenAI They explored how it affects us to interact with a chatbot in our mental health. Many people who come to Chatgpt to seek emotional support seek to placate the feeling of loneliness and, although it works in the short term, intensive use is associated with higher levels of isolation and emotional dependence. In This other study They deepen the false empathy. Often users who connect with a chatbot talk about how they feel more understood than talking to other people. The fact that these apps are always available and offer reconforting responses creates a false sensation of empathy and safety in users that can lead to dependence or addiction. Image | Gemini In Xataka | I have asked the AI ​​any bullshit and now I am writing a news about her

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