It's not bizarre to me at all. Gambling is at the heart of the modern mobile gaming industry and its exploitation of its customers. On top of that, gambling companies are paying influencers to promote gambling like the cigarette companies used to pay movie stars.
It would be for the good of everybody if the entire industry, sports betting, casino's, p2w freemium games, lootboxes including for cosmetics, TCG "booster packs", paying streamers to promote this poison, all of it is better off if it were banned honestly. Every sale of any game should give people the same cards, same characters, same equipment, same cosmetics, none of this gambling garbage.
> Gambling is at the heart of the modern mobile gaming industry
Gambling is at the heart of the entire global financial system. Everyone with RobinHood, a brokerage account, a 401(k) or pension participates in the great roulette wheel known as the Stock Market. We're all placing bets--just on MSFT or AAPL instead of 14 and 29. Or our retirement account is putting it on Red. Some of us here are putting it in their startups, but at the end of the day, it all boils down to wagering money on unknown future events, which is the definition of gambling.
This isn't even close to the same thing and you know it. Purchasing capital assets in a retirement account is not equivalent to a bet with a binary outcome, especially when the other option as a saver is to simply hold cash instead, which is also not riskless and has never outperformed ownership stake in a broad sampling of all businesses over the average workspan of a human laborer. Putting excess income into stock is a bet stock will outperform other asset classes. Keeping it in cash is a bet cash will outperform other asset classes. Not saving for retirement at all is a bet that whatever your country's form of nationalized pension is will be enough, or you'll die before you retire.
The reason using all of your disposal income on roulette bets as a retirement strategy is bad is not because there is some probability of increasing your bankroll and some probability of decreasing it. It's bad because the long run expected outcome of repeated bets is negative. The house always has an edge. That dynamic is exactly reversed when putting retirement savings into a stock index. Betting that your entire national economy won't collapse for over four decades is inherently a smarter bet.
Your point is that the gamble has a positive EV (true), but it's still gambling. Instead of betting against the house, you're betting against other investors, and the "house" (financial institutions) takes a small rake. So OK it's more like poker than roulette.
Aside from the gamification you see with Robin Hood, I don't have much issue with gambling on the stock market as it's one of the few gambles that makes the average bettor wealthier, so it doesn't have the same socially deleterious effect. Bettors may be going up against far more vicious sharks than you will ever see at a poker table, but that doesn't seem to be reason enough not to play the game.
It just needs to be strongly regulated, and not in the way it is now, where wealthy people are allowed more freedom than the poor.
One grift I've noticed with sponsored gacha streams is how the streamer always have exceptionally amazing luck. They always manage to pull a top-tier character very quickly, and then they spend the whole stream showing it off.
This kind of behavior is beyond predatory and should really be illegal, because it's obvious that the streamer is playing with far better odds than regular people.
Heck, if you want to keep it legal that's probably fine as well, but at least require clear disclosure when the streamer is getting improved drop rates.
There are many salty streams where the streamer does not get what he wants. Having done some gacha pulls and received what I wanted on the first pull with 0.07% odds, it truly is random. One card I have took... let's just say a lot of money... to get. Characters are available for a limited time and then may or may not ever return. For example, the rare character Fujino in FGO could be summoned in 2020, then there was no idea whether she would ever return. It turns out she did return in 2021 and 2022, but her next projected availability is in 2027.
I am not saying that the streamer you referred to does not receive preferential treatment, but FGO streams are definitely random.
It would be for the good of everybody if the entire industry, sports betting, casino's, p2w freemium games, lootboxes including for cosmetics, TCG "booster packs", paying streamers to promote this poison, all of it is better off if it were banned honestly. Every sale of any game should give people the same cards, same characters, same equipment, same cosmetics, none of this gambling garbage.