casino culturenoun.
A culture in which low-percentage money-making schemes — such as high-tech stocks, day trading, lotteries, and domain name speculation — become mainstream investment vehicles.
Example Citation:
"For only the second time in my life, I feel — I just know — I can be rich, too. We are programmed from birth to believe this. If we forget it from time to time, there's a whole casino culture out there to remind us — Las Vegas and Atlantic City, Wall Street, TV commercials, lotteries."
—Paul Farhi, "The Fortunate 500," The Washington Post, February 28, 1999
Notes:
A nod to subscriber Randall Stebbins for suggesting today's Word Spy.
