Gambling ads are seeming to pop up everywhere. Celebrities appear on your screen, regaling you with the betting advantages available on the app they are selling versus the competitors. Almost all of them include a phrase similar to “make every moment more.”
“Live your life with more margin and more risk” is probably a more accurate statement, but one that wouldn’t be as marketable.
Dabbling in sports gambling is not something we take issue with; the mindset that you need more excitement in each moment is. If the moment itself isn’t exciting enough, adding unnecessary and potentially extremely harmful risk to it probably isn’t going to end well in the long run.
For the 2024, Super Bowl, CBS reported that bettors planned to wager $23.1 billion! “The game isn’t exciting enough; let’s add to it!” As financial planners, this to us is unconscionable. And even worse, it’s a mindset being made more palatable and mainstream by the continued ad dollars going to it.
It is our belief that the way to achieve excitement in life isn’t to add more risk, it’s to live life in pursuit of your values. Chasing a bigger payout, a promotion, a record investment performance year, or any other number of goals can be exciting, but they are short-term. It’s our goal to help clients keep the long-term in mind when making decisions. You don’t need a record payout from a sports bet in order to achieve your goals. There is a number that is “enough”, that allows you to live the life you want to live. Let’s get there by using a prudent plan that avoids unnecessary risk. As George Soros said, “If investing is entertaining, if you’re having fun, you’re probably not making any money. Good investing is boring.”
Boring beats exciting losses any day.