Is Sports Betting the New American Investment Plan? & Candy Crush Keeps Crushing It

0:28Marketers, tell us if this sounds familiar. I'm Raymond Liu. And I'm Kayla Lopez. Today, is sports betting the new American investment plan? And why McDonald's secret sauce may have nothing to do with its food. It's Friday, August 14th. Let's ride.

0:44Kayla, it's good to have you back on the pod today. Can an emoji tell you how old you are? Well, the New York Times gathered tons of data from Google and Reddit and analyzed which emojis were the most popular in 2025 and which emojis were the most used among each generation. Now, in an audio format, this is going to sound a little awkward, but the top, loudly crying face, which ranked number four in 2024 and is now number one in 2025, which surpassed rolling on the floor laughing, which now sits at number two. Teenagers, of course, particularly teenage girls, are at the forefront of which popular emojis are used in today's text chains, group chats, and Reddit forums.

1:24Teenagers would use the fire emoji where older people would use 100 and are more likely to use folded hands or prayer hands, depending on how you look at it, instead of a thumbs up. In fact, a thumbs up is a big tell of how old you are nowadays. But some of the fastest growing emojis are the wilted flower, which can depict sadness or heartbreak, and the finger heart emoji, popularized by K-pop. Kayla, how self-conscious are you going to be now with emojis? Well, I'm already self-conscious about emojis. I do not use emojis with my younger colleagues because I'm afraid that they are laughing at me behind my back.

1:57That being said, I do really love the melting face emoji, which is one I use often. But my favorite part of the article is the thumbs up. Basically, it's a boomer emoji. But now apparently it's being used by a younger generation in a post-ironic way. So if you see me using the thumbs up, it is because I am ironic, not because I'm old and not because I'm being passive aggressive. Of course, of course. And now a word from our sponsor, Rubric. Kayla, what comes to mind when you hear intentionally engineered? Well, those robots with buzz saws that hit each other. Sure, but maybe think about Rubric.

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3:07Remember tariffs? Yeah. Well, refunds have started rolling into many U.S. companies where over 40 S &P 500 companies say they received$9.6 billion in refunds in the past quarter, including at least$2.1 billion in cash. In total, the government is on the hook to pay back a total of roughly$166 billion. Among the biggest refunds are going to companies like Apple with$2.2 billion, Ford with$1.3 billion, Nike$986 million, FedEx which gets$800 million, and Amazon$640 million. Now, Now, what do they plan to do with all that money? Well, that depends. Apple's Tim Cook said it plans to use it to expand its manufacturing footprint here in the U.S.

3:52Amazon said it's going to refund some customers only if they can trace back specific import charges passed on to them. And in some cases, it's just contributed to their quarterly earnings. How did this all happen again? And, well, back in February of this year, the Supreme Court rejected Trump's broad-based tariffs, which he tried to impose under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Refunds were ordered and a government site opened up in April for companies to apply for their refunds. Many thought this whole process was going to be slow and messy, but it's actually happening a lot quicker than expected.

4:27Kayla, I recently got a message from HR saying our payroll overpaid me by a few hundred bucks because of a system error, which I had to pay back. Imagine if I had to send back$100 billion. Yeah, even if you didn't have to send back$100 billion, that's still pretty horrible. So I'm sorry to you. But what are the actual impacts for companies when they receive these refunds? First, it's important to note that companies have some relative flexibility in how they're reporting their earnings, how they handle these payments and their earnings reports. So as you mentioned, while these big companies have reported almost$10 billion in funds, only about$2 billion has actually hit their bank accounts.

5:06Now, if it were me and I just saw$2 billion hit my bank account, first of all, you'd never see me again. I'd be off on some private beach somewhere. But for many of these companies, the refunds are just a drop in the bucket on the impact that tariffs have had on their business. For example, Caterpillar is expecting nearly$400 million in tariff recoveries this quarter, but is still expecting over$2 billion in tariffs for the year. So the formal impact is it's still a little too early to tell. Right. The tariffs are still in effect. Some form of tariffs are still in effect. So I want to go over in terms of what this means for the average consumers, because if you remember, the tariffs are pretty layered.

5:47They're so layered that it's really hard to trace back to the customers. So let's say you bought a pair of Nikes back when this whole tariff shindig was happening. It's really going to be, it's very unlikely that Nike is going to dig into every transaction and calculate, oh, which customer paid how much and they overpaid because of tariffs and whatnot. Plus the system is structured so that only the parties that paid directly to the tariffs can file for a refund. So meaning the average consumer has no legal standing to get their money back. Also, many companies didn't pass the full cost of the tariffs onto shoppers in the first place and absorb some of the tariff costs themselves to the business.

6:28Yes. So there are some companies, specifically shipping companies like FedEx and UPS, that did pass through taxes and duties directly to consumers. And there's actually line items as you're paying for your mail to be shipped to you that says taxes and duties. So that exact amount paid by customers is clear. And FedEx actually said it plans to start refunding about$800 million to shippers starting this month. Where it's less cut and dry, customers obviously, as you mentioned, will not be receiving direct refunds. Costco, for example, has said it plans to refund customers, quote, in some form, while companies like Amazon are stating that they're going to pass refunds through to customers just through lower prices, not necessarily through direct rebates.

7:12I checked my bank account, and unfortunately, I did not receive any rebates. So who knows? Maybe there's a few extra dollars waiting for me in the future. Right. And then, you know, when you're looking at this whole tariff thing, the whole refund, it sort of flipped the idea that this idea of tariffs was supposed to be a revenue maker for the federal government. But now it's looking like a net cost for the federal government. In July, just want to make sure I have the numbers right,$33.4 billion of tariff money was refunded, but only$24.8 billion was collected, which is actually the third consecutive month of negative net tariff revenue.

7:47The CBO, or their Congressional Budget Office, recently said that the deficit for the fiscal year will be$2.1 trillion, which is about$200 billion more than what they expected or what they forecasted back in early February. Trump has also cut into the revenue in recent months by creating exemptions due to consumers really feeling the price, the rising prices and they're hurting from the prices. For example, like the Moroccan fertilizer and lower duties for on-farm equipment. So, you know, basically the math ain't mathin'. You know, consumers are still absorbing the cost, but the money that was promised from tariffs isn't coming in.

8:27Okay, let's move on. It's Friday, which means it's Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week time, where we pick one story that was assigned seat 4B on their flight and another who's stuck in boarding group F. Kayla, you won the pre-show game of who has the best rooftop view in the company. I can vouch for that. So you get to go first. Yes. So I'm actually going to start with the dog of the week first, and that is the stock market. That's because more and more investors are taking money they used to allocate to the stock market, and they're putting it into sports betting. A survey done by Betterment showed that about one in four Gen Z investors treat sports betting as a deliberate part of their financial plans.

9:08Further, 52 % of Gen Z investors have directed funds designated for investing into sports betting at least once in the last year. So why is this happening? Well, ever since sports betting became legal in some states in 2018, the sports betting industry has gone from underground illegal betting rings to a massive industry. Now with companies like FanDuel and DraftKings having apps on your phone, You don't have to worry about finding a bookie or a horse track to get your bets in, and it's changing how younger adults are viewing their portfolios and building wealth. I've never used a sports betting app, so I was curious what you can actually bet on.

9:44Of course, there's the classic major leagues like the NFL, MLB, and NBA, but there's also more niche games like table tennis, sailing, darts, and even rodeo. Right? It's hard to believe that someone would put the fate of their retirement on the results of the New Zealand darts masters. I mean, it's kind of crazy what you can bet on nowadays, but I want to look at the survey in terms of some of the other numbers that they found. 52 % of Gen Z respondents, as you mentioned, had diverted funds they originally allocated for investing into sports betting. Then it's 14 % of millennials, 6 % of Gen X, and 1 % of boomers.

10:201%. Okay, Grandma, go ahead and make your bets. But you can definitely trace this back into the mean stock era days of 2020 and 2021, where traders essentially were able to band together and democratize trading and take power away from Wall Street and sort of upsetting the system. And that's because, you know, there's all these converging factors and they're dealing with the affordability issue, I would gather. many are looking at the tea leaves and sort of realizing, hey, the old conventional way of investing and working up the corporate ladder, saving for retirement isn't necessarily going to get them the white picket fence, big house, backyard, et cetera, et cetera.

11:00So why not go big or go home, right? Why don't I just put this money and try to one-up and leapfrog my chances? The whole gamification of trading and risky bets is a response to the state of the U.S. economy for the average young American, where, you know, wealthy inequality is worsening. Everybody's saying AI is going to, like, take over the job. So, you know, there's that stress that they have to deal with. You know, so a simple index fund isn't necessarily going to be enough when you're dealing with high prices and high inflation and economic uncertainty. Right. You mentioned go big or go home, and a lot of people are going home.

11:37So the president of the Sports Betting Alliance, which includes members like FanDuel and DraftKings, said, quote, sports betting is a form of entertainment, not an investment or a strategy for building wealth. And that, quote, adults who choose to bet should do so responsibly and never with money needed for savings or essential expenses. So obviously, you know, if you're spending money on sports betting and using it as potentially retirement, even the president of the Sports Betting Alliance believes that perhaps it is not the best option for you. And further, when we're talking about how much money are people actually making on sports betting.

12:12A recent UC San Diego study found that of the more than 700 ,000 gamblers they studied, only 4 % made money from online betting. Wow, 4 %? 4%. So that's 96 % of gamblers lost money in their sports bets. And according to the American Gaming Association, sports betting revenue rose to nearly$17 billion in 2025, up 23 % versus the year prior. Right. This is a super lucrative business and the revenue is not coming from nowhere. Yeah. And then you have the whole social media angle from it where Gen Z gets most of their financial news on social media. In fact, going from 45 % in 2024 and to 60 % in 2026, they're seeing others win big on it.

12:57Right. And so they're posting and people are posting it online. They're seeing it on their feeds and going like, hey, that could be me. Influencers who see this and they're like, oh, this is my surefire way to win big in prediction markets or on sports betting. So everyone believes that their strategy is the way to win big. In fact, there was a TikTok ad that Kalshi showed of a young woman who had this text on screen where it basically said, I was able to pay off my rent through Kalshi winnings. And then if you remember, there was the Wall Street Journal investigative piece, where Polymarket used these fake ads that spread across social media that sort of tried to convince people that they could win big on their own prediction markets.

13:39So a lot of folks, a lot of young Americans are looking at those ads and thinking, believing that's the way to go, you know? Okay, well, let's move on. My stock of the week is Candy Crush. Yes, if you're one of those people who think, do people still play that game? Well, one of the 81.5 million monthly active users would say, hell yes. Candy Crush Saga has been in the game for nearly 15 years and has become a rare case of a mobile game that has stuck around. On top of the 81 million users I mentioned, it also had 190.5 million installs and generated$876.5 million in in-app revenue in 2025 alone.

14:19And in 2023, its publisher King reported a lifetime revenue of$20 billion across its Candy Crush franchises. Today, it now has more than 23 ,000 levels, even has its own TV show with an all-stars tournament competing for a$1 million prize. Kayla, are you a Candy Crusher? I am not. I mean, I definitely have my own vices, but mobile games are not one of them. And so what's interesting to me, though, is that so many of these people that are playing Candy Crush don't actually identify as, quote, gamers. They are picking up the app in the flexible moments of their day when they have a few minutes or they're on a commute or they just need to kind of check out for a little bit.

14:59And they're not necessarily viewing it as like a call of duty, afternoon, evening, spend time with friends. But I was curious, because I don't play mobile games, is this a real business besides just Candy Crush, obviously the big winner here? And it is. There's an expected$133 billion in revenue in mobile games annually. And mobile games actually make up about half of all gaming revenue. So like Candy Crush, which allows for in-app purchasing, many of these apps are free to download but then require in-app purchases to play the game to its full potential. For Candy Crush, the most surprising fact that I heard about this is only about 4 % of users of Candy Crush are actually spending anything and they're still making over$800 million in revenue.

15:47Yeah. You know, and if you play Candy Crush and I remember playing it when I, when I first came out, it's, it's very casual. And I think that's part of the draw from it. It's, it's kind of built, it's kind of filled this void where it's very low stakes. You don't have to commit to it. You can kind of play it on your commute. You can play it while you're waiting for your train on the platform. And when you think about big, when you look out in the broad gaming industry as a whole, that you have games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, these are story-driven games, or these are very high, you know, immersive games.

16:20But you have to sit and play those games. You have to have like the sophisticated PC system to play those games. With Candy Crush, it's more likely available. It's available on mobile games. You can download it on your iPhone or your Android. And it's something that you can kind of pick up as you're going. and then it's also continued popularity it's continued popularity has much to do with just like the simplicity of it I mean it's just like matching three colors which is a very classic mechanism when you think about like Tetris and then also the other thing is just like the community aspect to it because it's international anyone in the world can understand it and play it and you can play with people across the world I mentioned the TV show that's like a really international draw there's on Reddit there's an official King community forum where people can compare and show their progress on the game.

17:07So it's filled this area where you don't have to be a hardcore gamer, but if you just want to have some kind of stimulation in your brain, because that's the thing too, instead of maybe scrolling endlessly and doom scrolling on your social feeds, you can play Candy Crush and you're at least progressing towards a goal. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and come back with why you keep coming back to McDonald's, the answer might be scarier than you think. Toby, has budget ever stopped you from doing something? Yes, I'm not even allowed to look at gold toilets. Okay, well, Rising Stars is a docuseries that follows small business owners as they create their businesses, face real challenges, and scale their brands with help from Amazon ads.

17:51Like HydroJug, sponsored products videos on Amazon ads helps them showcase their brand innovations right when customers are browsing. and it's helping drive real results. Watch now at advertising.amazon.com slash rising dash stars. That's advertising.amazon.com slash rising dash stars. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it.

18:27Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18+. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18+.

19:03If you find yourself craving a Big Mac, McDonald's may be expecting you. At least that's what Wired reporter Reese Rogers found when he requested a copy of his McDonald's loyalty program data and found a document over 500 pages long detailing his history with the fast food behemoth. The report included years of transaction history, loyalty points, promotion offers, and even records of his Monopoly game scans and prizes. But it also looked to the future, using the data to predict his behavior, including that he'd visit 2.16 times in the next six weeks and spend an average of$13 per order. It also scored him a zero on customer attrition, basically predicting he'd never stop eating at McDonald's.

19:44McDonald's says the data is used to personalize offers and improve the customer experience. But privacy experts say that combining small data points over years and years of interaction can create surprisingly detailed profiles of people's habits and routines. Ray, I don't know about you, but all this McDonald's talk is really making me crave some French fries. I love McDonald's. I would eat it every day if it didn't kill me, but I'm already a victim of McDonald's database because I also have the McDonald's app and I downloaded it because someone told me, it's like the deals on the app are really good.

20:17And when I downloaded it, I was like, yes, they are really good. They're always offering like, you know, two packets of 20 Chicken McNuggets for like 10 bucks or something like that. Yeah. Or included free large fries or something like that. You're like, yeah, why not get free large fries? And if you think about it, you know, we all have our McDonald's order, quote unquote. We all have like our Taco Bell order. We have like our Starbucks owner. So we are creatures of habits. And quite frankly, these companies know it too. And this is kind of a case where you do have the right to know, but how do you know what is right?

20:52Because thanks to California's Consumer Privacy Act, where California residents are allowed to request their personal data from a company, as well as demand for it to be deleted or opt out. But, you know, this is sort of the inherent risk of that law, where when you ask for that data, you're shown it. You're like, oh, my goodness. Like, do you really want to see? It's too much information. It can be too much information. But this is sort of the inherent risk when you sign up for memberships and loyalty programs because this is how they present to you offers and deals. So that way when you see it, you're like, oh, man, I can't pass up on this deal.

21:26This is just too good to be true, you know? I do. And this really got me thinking about why some stories and some stories of data collection and personalization get a positive reaction from consumers and why some get a negative reaction. So for example, let's think about Spotify wrapped. At the end of every year, Spotify shows you, you know, your top artists and songs of the year. And listeners are on the whole pretty happy to see their data shown back to you and packaged and analyzed and played back in a kind of fun, shareable way. But on the other hand, companies have gotten into some hot water for the data they collect.

22:04For example, last year, Delta received pushback for charging solo travelers more per seat versus travelers booking the same flights just with multiple people. And Instacart recently ended AI-based pricing experimentation when Consumer Reports investigation showed that they were charging users as much as 23 % difference for the same item. So even this story about McDonald's was receiving mixed responses online. Some people were responding with outrage saying, why is McDonald's tracking this data for me? And others saying, well, if a little data is what I need to get a big discount on my fries, what's the big deal?

22:42Yeah, if you're going to ask me, like, will I stop eating at McDonald's? No. Now let's sprint to the finish for some final headlines. Anthropic may be going for all treat, no trick in October because it's planning a gargantuan$2 trillion IPO that would eclipse SpaceX and make it the largest debut of all time. About half of the company's backers believe Anthropik's skyrocketing revenue is key to more than double its current valuation, according to the Financial Times. Investors expect the cloud maker to bring in between $100 billion to$120 billion in annualized revenue by the end of 2026. Kayla, analysts expected this year to be full of IPOs, and so far, they're pretty on the money.

23:24Yeah, I mean, this is a great time for Anthropik to go public because it's capitalizing on investor interest in AI. The tech is still buzzy. Expectations are super high. And there hasn't been a generative AI giant to hit the market yet. So this IPO is certainly being talked about. And as you mentioned, the backers are now anticipating 2026 revenue to hit$100 billion. But importantly, this is up from$9 billion last year and only$1 billion in 2024. One investor actually called this the fastest revenue growth in technology history. So this, you know, time will tell what the IPO in October is really going to be priced like, but people are definitely excited.

24:03And also it kind of puts the pressure on OpenAI, which many are expected they're going to go IPO sometime this year. And it's interesting to see Anthropic kind of publicizing that they're going to plan an IPO in October because, yeah, they're kind of setting the stage. They're putting the pressure on Sam Altman and OpenAI, where if Anthropic takes the title of greatest IPO of all time, largest IPO of all time, and if OpenAI falls short of that, a lot of people are going to be like, oh, you're not as good as Anthropic. but it's kind of putting the pressure on the company. So we'll see what happens.

24:37Okay, finally, your favorite candies are going all natural. New versions of M &Ms, Skittles, and Starburst are going to be made without artificial food dyes. The new colors include blends of beet juice for red, turmeric for yellow, and a combo of turmeric, beet juice, and spirulina for green. One of the harder colors to get naturally, blue. That's because not many common vegetables that we eat are blue. so they had to use some finagling of spirulina to get the blue color right. But if you're trying to produce this at scale, that could be a problem. This comes at a time when the FDA announced they would be working with food companies to phase out the petroleum-based synthetic dyes.

25:16Kayla, beet juice and turmeric in your Skittles. Does that sound delicious? It doesn't sound delicious, I have to say. It is a bummer to not have unfettered access to my red dye number 40, especially right before Halloween. It's right around the corner, So it's going to be interesting to see if less colorful candies make a difference for kids or if the taste is really everything that matters. And this story kind of reminds me of the whole naked Doritos chip when they launched the Doritos chips without the bright orange food coloring. I actually got to try them and they do kind of taste the same.