Barron’s OpEd: For Too Many Young People, Investing Is Like Gambling. It’s a Warning Sign.

The following oped, For Too Many Young People, Investing Is Like Gambling. It’s a Warning Sign, was originally published in Barron’s on October 21, 2025.

Young people are investing differently than their parents. They are focused on consumption—not compounding.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association learned that—among other things—in a new study we designed this year to better understand how investors view the financial industry. Conducted independently by the advisory firm KPMG, the survey asked more than 2,000 investors about their confidence, trust, and satisfaction with the firms and advisors that serve them.

The results were largely encouraging for the financial industry. Eight in 10 investors said they are satisfied with the industry, and nearly seven in 10 believe the industry acts in their best interests. But there are significant breaks between younger and older investors.

While nearly 75% of Boomers said they valued returns and performance, only 33% of Gen Z did. The first digital-native generation, perhaps unsurprisingly, significantly prefers a more digitized investing experience. They prioritize transparency almost five times more than Boomers. And, unlike every other surveyed generation, they are more satisfied with self-directed investing than with working with advisors.

On the surface, that is fine and well. But when I combine these results with what I witness every day in the industry, I see warning signs.

Technology has given younger investors extraordinary access, but it has also brought the human impulses that drive gambling into the world of investing. The art of investing is beginning to share space with the dopamine rush of speculation. The search for excitement, competition, and instant gratification has always been part of human nature, but technology has made those impulses faster, louder, and easier to act on.

The line between investing and gambling is blurring. We see it everywhere: prediction markets that let people wager on the weather, zero-day options that expire before most investors have even read the terms, and crypto “perps”—perpetual futures contracts that never settle, offer 30, 50, or even 100 to one leverage, and trade around the clock like a global casino.

Each of these products uses technology to make risk feel like a game: fast, frictionless, and exciting. But investing was never meant to be entertainment. Now, entertainment seems to be what Gen Z expects from the investing experience.

Technology has transformed markets from the days when brokers gathered under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street to the digital age. It has opened markets, reduced barriers, and brought in millions of new participants. But access without understanding of risks isn’t empowerment—it is exposure. When markets start to feel like games, the purpose of investing—to create lasting financial security—gets lost in the noise. No wonder so few young people say returns are important to them.

We shouldn’t forget that generative AI doesn’t change the basic rules of building wealth. Investing still rewards time, discipline, and understanding. Compounding, not consumption, remains the foundation of success. That truth has never required an algorithm to be proved.

And even if technology becomes the primary delivery mechanism, trust must still be the product. That means designing platforms that illuminate risk instead of hiding it, using data to teach context rather than chase attention, and making education part of every experience. Financial literacy cannot be an afterthought or part of a marketing campaign. It must be built into the investing experience itself.

The lesson of our study, as I see it, is that investor confidence in the industry is high, but the work of earning it never ends. Investors are telling us they want clarity, education, and accountability. That is doubly important for young investors, who are set to inherit as much as $105 trillion in wealth in the next 20 or so years.

We need to remind them that investing and gambling aren’t the same thing. One builds. The other burns. As an industry, we have a responsibility to make that distinction clear.