You’ve got to be in it to win it

By Emre Alex Aslan

I was watching a TikTok video, a person doing a funny skit, when halfway through he pulled out his phone, opened Rainbet (a gambling app), bet $200, and slipped the phone back into his pocket. He had doubled his money in a few seconds. When did gambling become this easy? And how many lives is the gambling industry going to destroy?

Gambling used to mean going somewhere, a physical place you had to dress up for. Now it can be done entirely from home: lying in bed, in private, where nobody can see or judge you. One 2023 survey found that four in ten gamblers have never set foot in a casino (StudyFinds, 2023). Going to a casino at least gives you the chance to change your mind; once you open an app, you are far less likely to stop. Gambling used to be done in cash. Now it is done with debit cards, Apple Pay and crypto, so you never see the effects in front of you.

Gambling companies are reaching more young people than ever. Research from the University of Bristol has found that these ads appeal far more to young people than to adults, especially hidden ones that do not look like ads at all, such as the skits you scroll past on social media. Almost half of 11 to 17-year-olds in the UK see gambling adverts on social media every week (Gambling Commission, 2025). Why would gambling companies target young people who cannot legally gamble yet, rather than adults? Because a customer who starts young is a customer for life. As Dr Raffaello Rossi puts it, “the earlier people start gambling, the more likely it will become habitual and problematic” (University of Bristol).

Online gambling has been sold as a get-rich-quick scheme. People post their wins, doubling their money at the click of a button, but nobody posts their losses. These games were designed so that the house always wins: sometimes you win, but the longer you play, the more likely you are to lose. Gambling has also been turned into entertainment. Platforms like Kick have made it into a kind of “sport,” where streamers are paid to gamble for hours in front of thousands of viewers, many of them young people watching their favourite streamer for fun. Seventy-eight per cent of young people who gamble with their own money say they do it for fun (Gambling Commission, 2025). Once gambling is gamified, the money you hand over stops feeling real.

Recently, the government has started to act. From 2025, 18 to 24-year-olds can bet no more than £2 per spin on online slots, and tax on online casino games rose from 21% to 40% in April 2026. But these rules target young people who gamble, not young people who are being advertised to. A £2 limit does nothing when a 15-year-old watches a streamer gamble for hours, or sees betting ads on television. Researchers at the University of Bristol have argued that users should only see gambling ads on social media if they opt in. I believe we should go further: ban gambling streams, stop influencers advertising gambling, and teach children in school about its dangers.

The TikTok video I watched was less than two minutes long, but when a young person sees an advert like that, it can stay with them for a lifetime. Gambling is sold as easy, fun and a way to make money. It isn’t. One of the worst inventions ever made was a casino in your pocket.

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