system
A chat on subreddit /r/PoliticalCompassMemes
human
If I put on my social commentary hat, I'd say that the rise in popularity of gambling is correlated to the population's disillusionment with established systems of wealth acquisition. When you're bought into the idea that hard work and persistence is enough to get you a stable and reasonable life, that low risk approach is preferable to a high-risk high-reward strategy like gambling for most people. For gambling to rise in popularity, it seems to suggest that lots of people are coming to the conclusion that the "bill of goods" that society is trying to sell them in the form of the kind of life they can buy for themselves with the kind of jobs they are supposed to be able to get is essentially a lie. If these other ways of making a life for yourself aren't actually fundamentally determined by hard work or anything else you can control or improve for yourself, then it's all basically gambling, so why not cut out the middle man and gamble in a way that gives you a chance at a really big payout instead of the modest one you get by playing by the regular rules?
gpt
Pretty much this, which in turn I'd argue is a consequence of increasing inequality and it being increasingly obvious that "working your way to the top" is not really something you can do any more. Wealth has become more and more disconnected from real the real value one adds to society for a long time, crypto and NFTs are just the latest expression thereof.