Yeah the lower classes gamble on the races, the upper classes gamble on companies and financial derivatives. The even more ridiculous thing is one bet has a positive expected value and one doesn't.
In the UK we have these things called "fruit machines"[0] which are common in certain types of bar and pub. They have lots of buttons and colourful lights and in theory there's some kind of "game" you can play to win money from here, but I've never been able to figure it out; on the rare occasions that I've put cash into a fruit machine, all it did was flash some lights and tell me it was keeping the money.
But what's interesting to me about these machines is that, since they're just big computers, their expected rate of return is entirely determined by their software. And it's a legal requirement for them to have a little infobox printed on the front that tells you exactly what that rate of return is. I don't remember what that rate typically, but it's definitely less than one pound returned for every pound gambled.
In other words, these machines literally say right there on the front of the machine, next to the part where you insert your coins, that by playing their "game" you are mathematically guaranteed to lose money. And yet people - lots of them, I assume, based on how prevalent these machines are - still gladly pour their spare change into these black holes.
Whoever invented the fruit machine must be laughing all the way to the bank.
A friend of a flatmate made a lot of money selling some bingo halls. He knew exactly how bad the returns on fruit machines are, because a handful in the atrium were half his profit when he was running them. He still liked to play on fruit machine whenever he saw one...
