Zuckerberg faced lawsuits that alleged he was liable for kids' addiction to Meta products.
Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images
Zuckerberg has avoided personal liability in 25 cases that accuse Meta of fuelling social media addiction.
The judge granted his motion to dismiss on Monday, but the case against Meta still stands.
The ruling found that Zuckerberg's role as Meta CEO was insufficient grounds to hold him liable.
A judge has granted Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's motion to dismiss 25 cases that alleged he was personally responsible for Instagram and Facebook fuelling social media addiction.
The cases filed sought to hold Zuckerberg personally responsible for keeping children hooked on Meta products. They alleged that the Meta CEO has control over design decisions that targeted higher user engagement and accused him of ignoring warnings that his platforms were unsafe for kids.
The judge said that Zuckerberg couldn't be held liable just because he has a public-facing role at Meta. The ruling aligns with the legal approach that sees executives typically shielded from personal liability.
"The "plaintiffs' theory would invert the states' "confidential" or "special" relationship requirements by creating a duty to disclose for any individual recognizable to the public. The Court will not countenance such a novel approach here," Rogers ruled.
Rogers is also overseeing hundreds of other lawsuits against social media companies, including Alphabet, Bytedance, and Snap, which accuse the platforms of causing negative mental and physical health effects in children due to social media addiction, per Reuters.
Meta is facing lawsuits by two tribal nations, who are accusing the company, along with Google, TikTok, and Snapchat of fostering social media addiction. They accuse social media companies of contributing to high suicide rates by purposefully getting kids hooked on the platforms.
A gallon of ammonia was spilled in the basement of a Gordon Ramsay restaurant in Illinois, local emergency services said.
One person was taken to hospital in a "stable" condition, Naperville's deputy fire chief said.
Staff were able to return to the restaurant later that night, the release said.
A person was taken to hospital in a "stable" condition after about a gallon of ammonia spilled in the basement of a Gordon Ramsay restaurant in a city in the suburbs of Chicago, local emergency services said.
On Monday night, staff from Naperville's fire department arrived at Ramsay's Kitchen in response to a call to find "approximately one gallon of ammonia spilled and off-gassing in the basement of the restaurant," Phil Giannattasio, the fire department's deputy chief, said in a release.
The restaurant's staff had already alerted other staff and diners and evacuated the restaurant before the fire department arrived, he said.
One civilian was transported to a nearby hospital and was "in stable condition," Giannattasio said, without giving further details.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that ammonia can cause "corrosive injury" when it comes into contact with moist tissues such as the eyes, throat, and lungs. Ammonia is used in fertilizers as well as in some industrial refrigerators.
Hazmat technicians from the fire department removed the ammonia from the location within 30 minutes of arrival using specialized absorbent materials, Giannattasio said.
"The spill was contained to the basement of the restaurant, and no further hazardous conditions were found," Giannattasio said. Fire department crew waited on the scene until later that night when all the fumes were ventilated, the site was cleaned up, and it was safe for staff to return, he said.
Business Insider did not immediately receive a response to a request for comment from Gordon Ramsay Restaurants North America, sent outside regular US working hours.
The Ramsay's Kitchen location had been inspected by the DuPage County Health Department in August. Inspectors reported 13 violations, including the presence of fruit flies, insufficient lighting in the basement, and some items like raw eggs and glasses being stored incorrectly. The report doesn't refer to any violations involving ammonia.
Ramsay has a sprawling restaurant empire, operating venues bearing his name across Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia. Like many celebrity chefs, he is not directly involved in the cooking in the vast majority of his restaurants.
Ramsay opened his first wholly-owned restaurant in Chelsea, London, in 1998. The Scottish TV chef originally opened most of his North American restaurants in partnerships with Caesar's Entertainment, but began opening some through Gordon Ramsay North America in 2019.
Ramsay now has 18 restaurants in the US, including four under the Ramsay's Kitchen brand. At the Naperville location, soup costs $12 and sandwiches start at $20. A portion of beef Wellington, a British classic, costs $69.
Squatters have recently taken over one of Ramsay's restaurants in London and turned it into what they described as a community art café.
The S&P 500 is headed for a devastating crash, markets guru David Brady said.
peshkov/Getty Images
Expect the S&P 500 to tumble 30%, recover, then suffer a historic crash, David Brady warned.
He predicted the Federal Reserve would shore up the market before the election.
The analyst said economic and geopolitical forces would cause a market collapse after the race ends.
Prepare for stocks to plunge 30%, rebound before the presidential election, then crash to their lowest level in 14 years, a markets analyst warned.
The S&P 500 is poised to plummet from over 5,000 points to an 18-month low of 3,500 points, David Brady said on the latest "Thoughtful Money" podcast episode.
Brady is a money manager, former foreign exchange trader, and the author of "The FIPEST Report" which analyzes metals and miners. He argued that stocks are massively overvalued, investors face much greater downside risk than potential upside, and a sell-off looks assured.
However, he predicted the Federal Reserve would step in to reverse the coming decline by cutting interest rates and growing its balance sheet — especially as the Biden administration will want a strong stock market and economy going into the November election.
"My two cents is short term, 20-30% drop, but then the Fed responds as it always does and the market goes up," Brady said. "After the election, stocks are going to get hammered."
"I expect the stock market to drop because of what's going on in the economy and elsewhere in the world," he said about his anticipated post-election decline.
Brady's list of concerns includes inflation climbing to 3.5% over the past two months, meaning the Fed might keep rates higher for longer. He also flagged an uptick in bankruptcies, car repossessions due to auto-loan defaults, credit-card delinquencies, and a slide in house prices.
"Those are signs to me that the economy is on life support," he said, adding that multiple foreign wars and pressure on the banking sector contributed to a gloomy backdrop.
"I believe the market is plateauing as well, and there are certain signals that I'm watching that will tell me it's time to get the heck out of Dodge," Brady said. Those signals include a decline in the S&P below 5,000 points or a deinversion of the yield curve, he noted.
"They'll all eventually bring down the most overvalued stock market we've seen perhaps since the Great Depression," he said about the myriad headwinds.
As for Brady's post-election forecast, he suggested the S&P could nosedive to about 1,000 points, erasing more than 14 years' worth of the index's gains and returning it to 2010 levels.
"I do see that we could get at least an 80% correction this time around," he said.
Brady isn't alone in predicting doom. Michael Burry of "The Big Short" fame, GMO cofounder Jeremy Grantham, and renowned forecaster Gary Shilling have all issued dire warnings about what lies ahead for markets and the economy.
Still, it's worth underscoring that the US economy and stocks have largely defied naysayers. Stocks hit record highs earlier this year, while inflation has cooled significantly, unemployment remains near historic lows, and growth has been robust.
Apple's Vision Pro has struggled to gain traction since its launch in February.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Apple wanted all eyes to be on the Vision Pro when it launched.
There's a lot more excitement about its plans with AI instead.
A report about AI chips coming to next-gen Macs helped boost Apple's stock by $112 billion.
Two months ago, Tim Cook was busy marking Apple's bold new vision of the future with the launch of expensive nerd goggles. He might want to reconsider where the company's real future lies.
Last week, investors signaled their belief that there is a more important needle-mover in the Cupertino giant's future than the $3,500 Vision Pro headset it launched in February; Apple's stock by $112 billion after news of an AI overhaul to Macs, of all things.
A report on Thursday from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple is working on revamping its entire Mac lineup with a series of new M4 processors that aim to put AI at their center.
The positive response to the news shows two key things for Apple.
First, expectations are sky-high for its AI strategy.
Though Apple has remained mostly silent on its plans for the tech industry's most-discussed technology over the past year, the market expects Apple's AI efforts to help bring new life to product categories that have felt increasingly staid in recent years.
Macs, which suffered a 27% sales drop in the last fiscal year, could entice a new generation of buyers if they come fitted with chips that power generative AI features.
Customers trying out Apple's iPhone 15 at an Apple store in Shanghai, China.
CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images
During that period, Apple particularly struggled with selling iPhones in China, its most important international market, as competitors like Huawei enticed consumers to rival offerings like the Mate 60 Pro. AI could give the phones the refresh needed to make them more appealing again.
Second, the future of the Vision Pro remains highly uncertain.
Mixed-reality technologies like virtual and augmented reality remain niche areas, which are proving tough to attract a mass consumer market to. Some early adopters have already returned their headsets. Apple, meanwhile, has already started offering discounts, per reports.
Also, as my colleague Peter Kafka noted this month, the Vision Pro lacks "killer apps" that can make its "spatial computing" concept feel like more than just a neat trick with a limited number of use cases.
Will that change any time soon? It's possible. With Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference set for June, a slate of announcements linked to the Vision Pro could make it much more useful.
Just don't expect the Vision Pro to steal the show in the same way a big AI reveal would.
Australia requires that employers contribute to employees' retirement funds.
Michael Dunning / Getty Images
Australia's superannuation system mandates employer-funded retirement contributions.
US retirement plans, by contrast, depend on employee contributions to accounts like 401(k)s.
If the US adopted Australia's retirement model, it could impact wage levels.
For many around the world, retirement can be a mixed bag.
Australian retirees rate their retirement happiness at 70 out of 100, according to a survey of 1,000 Australians over 60 in February by the independent researcher YouGov and investment management company Challenger Limited. Money was ranked behind good physical health as the key to a happy retirement.
Meanwhile, the US retirement system has become anxiety-inducing for many, as older adults struggle to make ends meet. More than half of Americans over the age of 65 are earning under $30,000 a year, according to a report from Sen. Bernie Sanders published in March and based on National Retirement Risk Index data.
In the US, retirement accounts are a company benefit that employees can choose to contribute some of their paychecks to throughout their careers. Australia, however, requires that employers make regular contributions to a retirement fund for each employee — a system called superannuation.
Catherine Reilly, a fellow at the financial research firmTIAA Institute and a non-resident scholar at Georgetown University's Center for Retirement Initiatives, said Australia's system makes sure all adults have a retirement fund.
"Everybody is put into a plan," she said. "Whereas in the US, you only get put into a plan if you'd work for an employer that offers it."
Seventy-one percent of nonretired Americans said they are at least moderately worried about being able to fund their retirement, according to a Gallup poll of 1,013 US adults in April 2023.
Reillysaid there are structural differences in how America and Australia handle savings for older adults. And whileit may be tough to implement Australia's system halfway around the world — but the US could get close, she said.
Australian retirement system puts saving responsibility on employers, not employees
America's current retirement infrastructure includes two major categories: defined contribution plans and Social Security.
Defined contribution plans, which include 401(k) and IRA accounts allow employees to save and invest money that they make throughout their career, usually by depositing a percentage of their regular paycheck directly into the accounts.
Companies might also contribute to an employee's 401(k), but they are under no federal requirement to do so. The retirement accounts an employee has access to and what benefits they retain after they stop work all depend on what retirement package an individual company offers.
In a 2024 letter to investors, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said the US retirement system puts undue pressure on employees to decide how much money to save and invest. With the rising cost of living in many US cities, it can be difficult for Americans to predict how much money they are going to need, an issue Fink called an "impossible math problem."
Social Security also comes into play when Americans retire, providing monthly government income benefits based on an individual's reported earnings. The federal insurance program is funded by taxes and provides income to retirees and workers with disabilities. Many retirees collect Social Security checks in addition to living off their 401(k) savings.
In Australia, however, companies are legally required to contribute 11% of an employee's monthly paycheck into their retirement account. This money can go into stocks, property, cash, or bonds — the employee has a choice. Employees can also contribute money, but much of the savings responsibility falls on their employer.
The employer contribution amount is set to increase to 12% next year.
Once they reach retirement age, which is between 55 and 60, depending on birth year,Australians can access the fund with their savings and investment earnings.
"It does level the playing field because everybody is put into a plan," Reilly said, adding that Australians have more choice in where and how their retirement money is saved.
As Reilly explained, superannuation also allows retirees to access their money all in one place.
This differs from the American system, where retirees' money is often held between a 401(k), other accounts, and outside investments. If an American employee works at multiple different companies during their career, Reilly said it can also complicate their retirement funds.
Additionally, Australian government age pensions aren't the same as Social Security. Retirees must meet a low enough asset criteria to access the age pension. Reilly said the more limited pension might be a disadvantage of the Australian system because many people's retirement is almost entirely dependent on their superannuation funds.
If the US adopted superannuation, it could impact employee salaries
Although the Australian government sets the terms for superannuation, it is managed by the private sector. Employers manage the retirement funds for their employees without much political oversight.
If America adopted superannuation, Reilly expects the system would work similarly — the federal government could establish what percentage of an employee's income employers need to contribute, but then companies could organize the retirement funds on their own.
She pointed to pooled-employer plans, a retirement fund strategy that is already being tried in the US, allowing multiple companies to contribute to a single retirement fund for an employee if that person chooses to work at different companies throughout their career. Some individual states, such as California and Colorado, also require that employees are automatically enrolled in some kind of retirement plan.
"In the US, the infrastructure for having the private sector manage these funds — that all exists already," Reilly said. "And I think that would be a sensible way to do things."
Still, Reilly cautioned that applying Australia's retirement system to the US could negatively affect employee wages. Because, for companies, it would be "very unpopular," she said.
When a company hires someone new, she said they consider the total cost of employing that person. This includes salary, bonuses, and benefits. If US employers become legally required to contribute to retirement funds, Reilly said companies may lower their employees' salaries to offset this new cost.
Still, a system like superannuation could help ensure a retirement fund for the 56 million private sector employees who don't have retirement benefits through their employer, The Pew Charitable Trust reported in January.
Are you an American or an Australian thinking about retirement? Are you open to sharing details about how much you have saved and your savings strategy? Reach out to this reporter at allisonkelly@insider.com.
NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, members of the International Space Station Expedition 70-71 main crew, on September 15, 2023.
VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO via Getty Images
The International Space Station has long been a symbol of international cooperation.
Astronauts and cosmonauts from the US and Russia work closely together on the ISS.
But amid increasing tensions over Ukraine, the cooperation is under pressure.
Teams from the US, Russia, Europe, China and Japan have for the past three decades lived and worked together on the Earth-orbiting station, collecting valuable scientific data in joint research projects.
Veteran astronaut Peggy Whitson previously told Business Insider that crews don't dwell on politics, and their unique view of the world separates them from Earth-bound conflicts.
"People are used to leaving the politics and the religion behind because, when you're in space, you become part of a space culture where my life depends on you and your life depends on me," she said.
On Earth, however, tensions between the US and Russia are at their worst point since the Cold War.
The US is supporting Ukraine against the Russian invasion, and Russia's President Vladimir Putin has menaced the West with the prospect of nuclear war in response. The areas where the countries can find common ground are dwindling.
An uneasy relationship
Right now, there are four US astronauts, three Chinese astronauts, and three Russian cosmonauts on the ISS.
But tensions are threatening the precarious agreement that underpins the ISS, with some Russian cosmonauts using the station for a propaganda stunt, and the Kremlin threatening to pull out of the ISS completely.
In 2022, Russia announced that it would withdraw from the ISS in 2024 to build its own space station, but it later deferred its exit until 2028.
If Russia acts on its threats, it could spell the end of the ISS, as Russian space technology expertise is vital for keeping it in orbit.
Amid the geopolitical jostling, the US and Russia are joined in an increasingly tense partnership to keep the ISS going despite being at loggerheads on almost every other front.
"They are metaphorically, practically, and legally codependent, even if some members of each side would prefer them not to be," Jill Stuart of Imperial College London told BI
Fears over conflict on Earth threatening the space station have even made it to Hollywood with a space thriller, "ISS," released in January.
A still from the "ISS" movie.
Bleecker Street/YouTube
The movie follows Russian and American astronauts who are on a space mission when a nuclear war breaks out. Their respective countries order them to take control of the space station.
Politics makes its way to space
The creation of the ISS was announced by former US President Ronald Reagan, who in 1984 asked NASA to create a "permanently manned space station" that other countries would be invited to contribute to.
By 1988, 15 nations had agreed to participate in the project, then known as Space Station Freedom. Representatives from the US, Japan, Canada, and nine members of the European Space Agency (ESA) signed the Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) to consent to its construction.
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, President Bill Clinton invited newly-formed Russia to join the project, which changed its name to the ISS in 1993.
The crew of Soyuz 11.
Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The Soviets had long-standing expertise in aerospace technology, having launched the world's first space station, "Salyut," in 1971.
Ever since officially joining, Russia has worked extremely closely with the US on the ISS. Crew from both countries were part of the first monthlong expedition in 2000.
Terry Virts of NASA and Anton Shkaplerov of Roscomos pose on October 8, 2015 in Milan, Italy.
Pier Marco Tacca via Getty Images
But the ISS, for so long a place symbolizing the unity between nations, has begun to fall prey to political divisions as the era of post-Cold War optimism gave way to renewed conflict.
In July 2022, Russian cosmonauts on the ISS unveiled a flag of the Luhansk region in Ukraine. The region has recently been occupied by Russia's invading military, and the picture was seen as a show of support for Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
It was an outrageous provocation at a site where political differences were supposed to matter less than the common pursuit of truth, said critics.
"I am incredibly disappointed to see cosmonauts and Roscosmos using the International Space Station as a platform to promote their illegal and immoral war, where civilians are being killed every day," Terry Virts, a US astronaut and commander of the ISS in 2015, said at the time.
Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov pose with a flag of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic on the International Space Station, in this picture released July 4, 2022.
Roscosmos/Reuters
But Virts told BI that Russia's economic difficulties mean that, for the time being, its provocations are unlikely to be a prelude to fully withdrawing from the ISS.
"It is the only viable civilian space activity for them in the near term," he said.
Russia is channeling huge amounts of money into its Ukraine campaign, with military spending accounting for 6% of GDP last year. It leaves little left over for a huge and ambitious project such as building a space station.
"Their economy has been transitioned to a war footing and they will not have the money to begin any new space exploration initiatives in the foreseeable future," said Virts.
US reliance on Russia
Under the ISS agreement, every nation taking part helps fund it. Russia and the US, as the world's space exploration superpowers, take the largest share of responsibility for maintaining the ship.
The ISS's habitable modules, where the astronauts live and work, are jointly owned by the US and Russia and physically connected.
Pilot Michael Barratt, commander Matthew Dominick, Russian cosmonaut and mission specialist Alexander Grebenkin, and mission specialist Jeanette Epps in March 2024 before a six-month ISS mission.
Anadolu/Getty Images
Stuart, of Imperial College, said that the way the station is built enforces cooperation between nations that find little else to agree about.
"Although strong words have been used on both sides since the conflict in Ukraine, in reality, the agencies involved in the station—as well as the hardware of the station itself—are interdependent in a way that has so far ensured a stable, if tense, continuation of operation," said Stuart.
"Over the past decades of operation, other political tensions between the US and Russia have led to questions about the future of the ISS, but it has always weathered the storm," said Stuart.
The future of the ISS, if Russia does act on its threats and withdraws, appears bleak. It would be difficult to get the ISS to even move without Russian help, said Virts. And transporting astronauts to the station would be more difficult, as under the ISS agreement, Russia flies international teams from its BaikonurCosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Verts said that while the US would likely be able to find other ways of transporting its astronauts to the station if Russia withdraws its use of its "Soyuz" capsules, the section of the station maintained by Russia include its thrusters, or the engines used to move the spacecraft.
"We do have to cooperate for the basic operation of the station," he said.
One possible solution could come in the form of equipment or financial assistance from Elon Musk's SpaceX. The private space company is thought to be worth between $125 and $140 billion.
Musk wrote a social media post in February 2022 that alluded to the company saving ISS from an "uncontrolled deorbit" after the head of Russia's space agency warned it could crash into the US or Europe if ties were cut over the conflict in Ukraine, The Independent reported.
Meanwhile, CNBC reported in August that the European Space Agency was considering using the organization's launchers over Russia's "Soyuz" capsules.
A new space race
While the US and Russia continue their tense collaborations on the ISS, in other parts of space, competition is intensifying.
China is rapidly becoming a major power in space, challenging the US and Russia's dominance of space exploration and technology. China has completed several unmanned Moon landings, has its own space station, and has developed a sophisticated commercial and military satellite program.
Great power competition in space is nothing new. After all, the first space race was fuelled by the geopolitical rivalry between the US and Soviet Russia.
But the era of cooperation and unity symbolized by the ISS could soon come to feel like something from the past, say experts. For Stuart, the future will likely be defined instead by intensifying rivalry.
"Countries have long used space activity to demonstrate their prestige, and this will continue into the foreseeable future—leading to inevitable competition and even conflict," said Stuart.
Caitlin Clark played for Iowa Hawkeyes in the NCAA.
David Berding/Getty Images
Caitlin Clark will earn less in the WNBA than some trade jobs – and the average athlete.
The pay gap is due to revenue differences between the NBA and WNBA.
Despite her low base salary, Clark could make over $3 million from brand sponsorships and endorsements.
Caitlin Clark is the first pick of the 2024 Women's National Basketball Association draft. And she'll be paid less than the average acupuncturist, elevator repairer, and police detective in the US.
On Monday, the Indiana Fever picked Clark, who shattered the NCAA career points record across both men's and women's basketball earlier this year. Clark, who wore a $17,000 Prada outfit to the draft, will make an estimated base salary of $76,535 in her first year.
For comparison, the average acupuncturist in the US made $84,260 last year, per the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average detective made $95,930 last year.
Salaries are negotiated by the WNBA players' union. Lower-level draft picks make $64,154 as a base salary, but salaries are much higher for non-rookie players: The highest-paid WNBA players make over $200,000 in base salary.
"In second grade, I wrote on a piece of paper: 'Get drafted into WNBA, earn a basketball scholarship,' everything like that. And I think I've been able to check so many boxes and then this is another one and I feel like I'm ready for this chapter of my life," Clark said in a televised interview minutes before the draft.
To put Clark's pay into perspective, the first pick in the 2024 NBA draft is expected to make $10 million in his first year. The NFL's first draft will make around $7 million. The average US athlete across all spectator sports made $370,690 last year, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.
The pay gap stems from the difference in revenue between the basketball leagues' male and female divisions. Revenue, which comes from ticket sales, merchandise, food and beverage sales, and local broadcasting rights,is used to pay player salaries. The NBA brings in over $10 billion a year, while the WNBA recorded an estimated $200 million in revenue last year, per Bloomberg.
Revenue-sharing models differ between the leagues, too.
The NBA splits about half of all its income with players while the WNBA shares 50% of incremental revenue — excess money after the league hits a revenue target.
Despite the low base salary, Clark, who has over two million social media followers, stands to make major money from brand sponsorships and endorsements. Data tracker On3 estimated she's worth over $3 million from name, image, and likeness deals this year. She has deals with Nike, Gatorade, and State Farm Insurance.
The boys-who-like-to-bet bank is open, and a slew of companies are making as many withdrawals as they can.
iStock; Rebecca Zisser/BI
If you want to gamble in America these days, you have more ways to put your money on the line than ever. You've got the real-life casino, the casino on your phone, sports betting, crypto, meme stocks — even complex financial products like zero-day options can give you a quick hit of risk. For young men in particular, it's an enticing, if a bit troubling, prospect. But for a variety of companies, from sportsbooks to investing apps, an increased willingness to make some kind of gamble means business is booming. The boys-who-like-to-bet bank is open, and companies are making as many withdrawals as they can.
The level at which gambling has become normalized in the United States in recent years is stunning. Americans legally bet a record $119.84 billion on sports in 2023, up from $93 billion in 2022. Since the Supreme Court in 2018 struck down a federal law prohibiting sports gambling, more than three dozen states have embraced it in some form. Seven states have also legalized iGaming, meaning online blackjack, roulette, and slot machines.
And while not explicitly gambling, free trading apps such as Robinhood have gotten an increasing number of ordinary people into investing — for fun, to alleviate boredom, to try to make some extra cash. While many people have used the apps to build a stable portfolio, a good chunk of people are doing high-risk day trading or piling into meme stocks like GameStop, AMC, or, as Donald Trump's people are hoping, his newly public social-media company. Crypto is back again, and this time around, almost nobody is pretending the endeavor is about anything other than "number go up." Many video games have a gambling-like aspect, too, that gets kids and adolescents into the risk-minded pipeline.
While plenty of people across demographics are participating in these trends, data suggests the crowds skew younger and male. A 2023 survey from the NCAA found that sports gambling was prevalent among young adults, specifically on college campuses and among Black and Latino respondents. Pew Research found in 2022 that men and people under 50 were likelier to bet on sports than women and the over-50 crowd. Younger men tend to be more into crypto and meme-stock trading as well.
The precise reason for this behavior is hard to pin down, said Timothy Fong, a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA and the codirector of its gambling-studies program. There's a cultural component: In the '80s, young men were fed movies like "Wall Street," shown flashy cars and money, and told that greed is good. In the '90s and early 2000s, they were sold on more traditional forms of gambling and poker. Now they're being marketed sports betting and crypto. But it also goes deeper than that.
"For years, when we've studied gambling behaviors as well as other addictive behaviors, the trend has always been males more than females are impacted," Fong said. "People have said, well, is that a biological risk? Is that a culturally driven risk? Is that a psychological risk or a social risk factor? And basically, what I can say is that it's probably a combination."
There may be FOMO, as in fear of missing out. Younger men see their friends playing in crypto or betting on sports, and they want to join in. Many of them have income they're not doing more productive things with, especially in the wake of a pandemic that has a lot of consumers who were once trying to save up thinking, "Eh, screw it." Maybe 40 years ago a 28-year-old had a mortgage and a family to support. Now he doesn't have those responsibilities and can direct disposable income toward whichever stock he just saw recommended on Reddit or a bet on whether the next pitch in a baseball game will be a ball or a strike.
For years, when we've studied gambling behaviors as well as other addictive behaviors, the trend has always been males more than females are impacted
Kahlil Philander, a Washington State University professor who focuses on public policy and gambling, said this gambling boom is being compounded by a novelty effect. Many young people are being exposed to gambling for the first time. and a wide variety of products are being marketed aggressively to them. All the advertising dollars that have been spent on sports-betting platforms and crypto exchanges, for example, have amplified the exposure effect. The other part of the story is that many of these people haven't gambled before: Unlike a 60-year-old who's been there, done that, they haven't internalized the downsides.
"If there are risks or risk-mitigating strategies that individuals can take, they might not have learned those lessons yet," Philander said. "That can lead to higher levels of involvement, more harmful activity, all the types of things that people with more experience might have figured out for themselves one way or another."
At the heart of this is technology is the idea that guys don't have to walk over to the casino to place a bet or call a broker to trade a stock — they can just take out their phones.
"The technology that brings us that intersection between gambling, gaming, investing, and financial risk, that technology barrier is so low right now," Fong said.
For some young men, a level of nihilism about the economy leads to an impetus to take some risks. It shows up in movies like "Dumb Money," about the GameStop phenomenon, or "This Is Not Financial Advice," a documentary about dogecoin where the protagonists are portrayed as Davids against Goliaths — hedge funds, but also the economic system at large.
"We're at a place as a society where there are many new forms of gambling where the nature of investing and financial risk-taking is much different than it was before," Philander said.
"For whatever reasons, markets now exhibit far more casino-like behavior than they did when I was young," he wrote. "The casino now resides in many homes and daily tempts the occupants."
Along with the rise of new customers, problem-gambling behavior is increasing, especially among young men. A 2023 report on the prevalence of gambling in New Jersey — where sports betting and online gambling are legal, and where Atlantic City is — found that men had double the rate of high-risk problem gambling than women and that those ages 18 to 44 were at the highest risk. The New Jersey report identified a significant prevalence of high-risk stock trading among young men. In the state, which pushed to have the federal law prohibiting sports betting overturned, calls to its problem-gambling hotline tripled in five years, with people 25 to 34 being the likeliest to reach out.
The casino now resides in many homes and daily tempts the occupants
Warren Buffett
Most people who gamble don't wind up with an addiction. According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, some 2.5 million Americans have a severe gambling problem, and another 5 million to 8 million have a problem it considers mild or moderate. That's a small sliver of the population. Plenty of people do some amount of betting and eventually fall off, or they dip in from time to time and are just fine. The public's interest in crypto ebbs and flows, and just because someone got into meme stocks for a while doesn't mean they're living on Wall Street Bets forever.
Still, the explosion of playing so much with money in the US is worrying, especially without a lot going on in the way of regulations, education, or safeguards to keep problem gambling in check. At least a sports-betting app will nudge someone to slow down if they go too far — there are virtually no protections in place if your day-trading habit gets out of hand, and many people don't even realize that what they're doing really is gambling. Fong told me he sees patients who will have lost thousands of dollars playing stocks and insist they just didn't time the market right.
"The one question I'll ask folks, I'll say, 'Does this behavior make your life better, or does it create problems?'" he said. "And that's it."
Casinos, sportsbooks, and trading platforms want to make money off bettors, and the way to do that is to get them to play more, not less. While many young men will eventually move on from their betting habits, not all of them will — and the company's hope is to turn them into clients for life.
Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.
People shop at a Walmart Supercenter store in Rosemead, California in 2019.
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
Retailers have been talking a lot about how theft is a problem at their stores.
But Walmart, Target, and other chains's own policies and practices could be worsening the problem.
From conflicting policies to understaffing, retailers can make it hard for workers to prevent theft.
The retail industry has spent much of the past year raising alarms around shoplifting and "organized retail crime."
But while conversations around the problem of theft at stores often centers around external factors like law enforcement and the criminal justice system, one of the biggest obstacles to curtailing theft might be a lot closer to home.
That's because major retailers, including Walmart, Target, and others, have policies that sometimes prevent their own staff from addressing shoplifting at their stores, current and former employees told Business Insider.
Some workers have been disciplined or fired if they go after shoplifters, according to interviews and media reports. Others say a lack of resources and follow-up after the fact also makes it more logical for the workers to just turn a blind eye to the problem rather than do anything about it.
Most retailers have policies preventing employees from taking action when theft happens
Rhea Gordon, a former Walmart associate at one of the retailer's stores in North Carolina, told BI that she was fired after trying to catch two shoplifters who were taking hundreds of dollars worth of makeup.
On one hand, Gordon said, managers told her and other employees to check shopping baskets, bags, and other areas where customers could hide unpaid merchandise.
On the other, associates are frequently told not to engage with customers who resist or who make threats after employees approach them. Walmart's Customer Theft policy, for instance, repeatedly tells associates "to disengage and withdraw from the situation" and contact law enforcement if the situation becomes at all heated, according to a copy reviewed by BI.
"Associate safety is always a top priority and we have policies in place to protect the health and wellbeing of those in our stores," a Walmart spokesperson said.
Dollar General's employee handbook takes a similarly hands-off approach. "If you suspect that someone is shoplifting, you should provide them with good customer service as you would any other customer and inform the manager on duty of your observations," the handbook reads. "Store employees must never become involved in physical or verbal confrontations or touch a customer."
A Dollar General spokesperson said: "We prioritize employee and customer safety over the potential loss of merchandise. For that reason, employees are instructed not to place themselves or others in danger in order to prevent shoplifting."
Lululemon also made news when it fired several workers who had attempted to intervene with suspected shoplifters. CEO Calvin McDonald cited safety concerns with regard to the company's zero-tolerance policy, telling CNBC, "It's only merchandise."
Even if your job is actually in security, your hands are metaphorically tied.
A Target worker in California told BI his location sees multiple instances of theft per day, with the company's Assets Protection employees giving chase — but usually unable to do anything to stop the theft or get information that could curb future thefts.
"The policy is not to touch them but just ask them to please don't steal from us," the worker said. "If they make it to the sidewalk, then they are scot-free." Target did not respond to a request for comment.
Several former Walmart employees, by contrast, pointed out that the retailer's asset protection teams are tasked with observing and reporting possible crimes, but are otherwise instructed to not reveal themselves or their role to customers.
Retailers don't always hire enough employees — or give them the tools — to prevent theft
It's not just policies that hold employees back. At some stores, workers just don't have the resources to prevent theft.
At Walmart, for instance, associates who monitor self-checkout are supposed to conduct random "cart checks" of Spark drivers who shop an order before delivering it. The process involves the associate scanning a few items using a phone app before allowing the Spark driver to exit the store.
But one contractor who shops and delivers for Walmart's Spark delivery service in Montana told BI that associates at his store don't have a phone to carry out the check "nine times out of 10."
When that happens, associates direct him to ignore the cart check notification on his own phone, telling him that it will "time out" eventually, the driver said. "Walmart has a system that doesn't work because Walmart doesn't provide them the tools," the driver said.
"They have an electronics department," the driver added. "Go get a phone, they're right there."
The Walmart spokesperson confirmed that the retailer conducts cart checks but didn't comment on the lack of devices.
There's another seemingly chronic issue: companies just aren't hiring enough staff.
"If there's one person for a store that is thousands of square feet, how much is one human being going to do?" Thea Sebastian, director at the Futures Institute, told BI. Sebastian and Hanna Love, a fellow at Brookings, co-authored a recent study that found retail theft is hard to quantify — and frequently overstated.
Among the report's recommendations for retailers: Hire enough employees at stores, and make sure they aren't constantly overworked. "A happy worker is going to make for a much happier customer, who then is going to be much less likely to engage in these activities," Sebastian said.
Having happy employees — and enough of them — is "not only effective in reducing crime, it will just help improve the customer experience," Love said.
"Who wants to go into a store when everything's already behind the glass, you can't find a person to open it for you, and you just walk out?" she said.
Do you work at Walmart, Target, or another major retailer and have a story idea to share? Reach out to these reporters at dreuter@businessinsider.com or abitter@businessinsider.com
Hady Mendez worked as head of equality at a major tech company before being laid off.
She said it's been one of the most difficult times in her professional career.
Mendez said she's happier with the flexibility since starting her own business and a part-time job.
"I should totally go work there. I spend half my paycheck there anyway."
This was the conversation between me and my friend, Jannet. It's what I refer to as my famous last words before I applied for a retail job at a clothing store after working in corporate for 25 years.
It was the Fall of 2023. About nine months earlier, I had experienced a layoff from my job as head of equality for a major tech company where I worked remotely while serving as an advisor to our seven Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), a liaison to the office of equality, and a program manager. Almost immediately, I launched my business, Boldly Speaking, leaning on my speaker skills and years of experience with ERGs.
I was having a solid first year in my business, both from a client acquisition and revenue perspective, but I knew things were about to slow down due to the holiday season.
Enter my brilliant idea: Take on a "bridge job," a job that would give me the time and money I needed as I worked toward building my business or moving to my next big opportunity. The income would allow me to keep more of my savings intact. It would also allow me to buy coffee and treat myself to those gluten-free, vegan sweets I'd come to enjoy so much without feeling guilty.
I ended up working at an Athleta store in NYC, and I'm glad I decided to join that team. What sticks with me most is the confidence and joy I've found during a time filled with so much doubt and uncertainty.
Imagine what it was like to land a brand associate role in one of my favorite stores
Now is probably a good time to share that I love the Gap Inc. brand. About 90% of my clothes come from Athleta and Gap. I wear their clothes to business meetings, to hang out on the weekends, and to go for long walks. I'm quite literally a walking advertisement for this brand.
I landed a seasonal brand associate role and felt like a kid in a candy store. I've done everything from helping customers find clothing items, sweeping and mopping the floor, folding clothes, cleaning mirrors and windows, shipping items from the store, and ringing up customers.
I wanted to buy everything in my first few weeks on the job. Even as I was enjoying the experience of being around my favorite brand several days a week, I was learning a lot about the clothes, our customers, and the role every associate plays.
There were some funny aspects to my transition. I like to get to places early, and I found out quickly there was no need to be more than five minutes early for my shift. Also, while I always made it a point to take a lunch break during my corporate days, now I'm actually legally mandated to take a 15-minute break during my shift (sometimes more if the shift is longer). I've learned to look forward to these breaks as an opportunity to reset and come back to the floor even stronger.
One thing that's really different from corporate is that we have daily goals for the store. Each day, we focus on a different sales target or objective.
What started as "seasonal work" has now become a part-time gig for me
Much like my tech and financial services jobs, my favorite part of working at the clothing store is interacting with customers.
I love to hear about what they're looking for, where they'll be wearing the items they purchase, and how they want to feel. What I love even more is the look on their face when they find an item that not only feels good but looks great too.
Surprisingly I've discovered I'm actually kind of good at this brand associate work. When I was younger, I worked for my father at his shoe store, and I remember being a lousy salesperson because I always wanted to be behind the register. But somehow, I inherited some of that great customer service "mojo" from my dad because customers enjoy working with me.
Part of me wants to go back to corporate life and a stable, predictable routine
Finding a full-time job in this market has been incredibly challenging while starting a business from scratch has presented its own unique set of challenges. It's definitely been a time of transition for me.
If I'm honest, it has been one of the most difficult times in my professional career. I've experienced a broad set of emotions since my tech layoff: shock, anger, fear, anxiety, worry, and even profound sadness.
What I miss most about corporate life is working on a major project or customer deliverable as a team. I pride myself in adding a lot of value in those types of scenarios — always finding ways to lean into my critical thinking superpowers to over-deliver and exceed customer expectations.
Another part of me really loves the flexibility and independence I experience as an entrepreneur
I have to say the flexibility I have as an entrepreneur is unmatched. I can take off whenever I want, be creative, and explore new projects, and am very much aligned with what I believe to be my purpose. Admittedly, I'm a bit spoiled by my current situation and know it will take a great company and role to bring me back to corporate.
Everything in life has a season. And I believe this has been my season to enjoy entrepreneurship with all of its ebbs and flows. I don't plan to leave my job at Athleta any time soon. The longer I work there, the more I realize I'm where I belong — for right now.