ABSTRACT
In this book, I have argued that contemporary digital gambling and gambling-like platforms give birth to a new type of media and cultural form called gamble-play. I have mobilised this concept across different types of digital games of chance. In the current chapter, I argue that some stock trading apps follow similar procedural and cultural dynamics, highlighting the already tight connection between the spheres of gambling, play and finance (Dorn & Sengmueller, 2009; Goggin, 2012; Nicoll, 2013). I analyse the discourses surrounding the apps Bux (Ayondo Markets Limited) and Robinhood (Robinhood Markets Inc.), two products in which the cultural dynamics of casual gaming, mobile media and finance intersect. While Bux perpetuates the concept of finance as an aspirational, male-dominated arena, Robinhood rides the waves of anti-establishment entrepreneurial culture while being part of the financial status quo. Both apps are unashamedly bastions of capitalism.
