At least on the Robinhood and crypto side, I think 20-somethings are just absolutely desperate. They look at their parents generation and see everything they aren't allowed to have. Working harder won't buy them a house. So they look for the jackpot somewhere else.
FWIW, we super felt this same way in our 20s at the end of the 2000s when the financial crisis happened. But it turned out that through working and saving we actually were eventually "allowed" to have the things like houses and weddings and families that our parents' generation were able to have. It did take more and it did take longer, but it didn't require winning a jackpot.
(Speaking in population-level averages here. The "elder millenials" that came of age into the financial crisis are now own homes and have families to a large extent, though of course many individuals still can't afford homes or families.)
I despise that this has only gotten worse for today's young people (after getting better for awhile, I think). But even still, working and saving continues to have much higher "expected value" than gambling.
