The Next Wolf of Wall Street Isn't the 10th Grader in Your School's Investment Club
Sheep on Main Street
They Think They're the Wolf. They're Being Herded.
By Katie Greeley, LCSW, CADC
Walk through the lunchroom of almost any high school and listen closely. A few years ago, it was sneakers, NFTs, or figuring out how to make money off a Twitch Fortnite stream. Now it revolves around calls and puts, strike prices, entry points, and which cryptocurrency is about to take off. Students compare wins, track losses, and speak in a language that sounds almost professional. That’s not accidental. It’s designed to make it all feel legitimate.
What sits beneath these conversations is a pipeline that begins not in a classroom or a bank, but on their phones. It starts with a video: a young man, labeled a “Finfluencer,” standing in front of a rented Lamborghini (a detail he’s not exactly advertising) explaining that school is a scam and that the only people who get rich are the ones who opt out. He points to a familiar set of exceptions, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, not as outliers, but as proof.
The pitch follows predictably. Access to a private community. Exclusive strategies. “Pro-level” tools. There’s always a limited-time offer, €100 a month, down from €200, framed as an entry point for those serious enough to commit. It’s sold as access and exclusivity. It feels like an opportunity. In reality, it’s a funnel.
The finfluencer’s brand rests on a simple promise: that his followers, often young men and boys, can become the next Wolf of Wall Street if they are bold enough.
This is not about teenage boys being irresponsible with money. It is about how a coordinated set of industries monetizes adolescent insecurity, dresses it up as ambition, and funnels young men toward products that are, in practice, indistinguishable from gambling.
“We were thrilled that our son was interested in learning more about investing.”
First, it is worth reminding readers who Jordan Belfort, the real “Wolf of Wall Street,” actually is. He built a brokerage firm that ran pump-and-dump schemes, defrauding investors of more than 200 million dollars. He was arrested by the FBI and sentenced to four years in federal prison, serving 22 months after cooperating with authorities. As part of his plea deal, he was ordered to pay over 110 million dollars in restitution and to forfeit half of his income to victims, a debt that has followed him long after his release. He is not a model of investing. He is a case study in fraud. Students should be reminded of that.
Since January 2025, after nearly every parent session where our team discusses the predatory nature of sports betting, prediction markets, “gacha” games, and “investing” platforms, we hear a version of the same line: “We were thrilled that our son was interested in learning more about investing.” Increasingly, the follow-up is different: “Now I think I understand what’s actually going on.”
What parent wouldn’t be encouraged by that first line? An interest in investing reads as responsibility, foresight, a young person thinking seriously about their future.
That is what makes it so easy to miss. At first glance, it looks like a win. A 14-year-old suddenly cares about the stock market, asking about Apple and Tesla, reading about crypto, joining the school’s investment club, and coming home engaged. Counselors notice it. Teachers flag it to parents as a bright spot. Compared with everything else families worry about, it reads as maturity, even ambition.
It can be. A student with a custodial account, a long-term index fund, and a genuine interest in how businesses work is getting a healthy introduction to investing. But that is not what’s driving the current surge in interest. Slow, compounding growth is not what platforms reward or what algorithms promote.
What is more common, and far harder to recognize, is something else entirely: behavior that uses the language of investing to produce the patterns of gambling. The lunchtime “portfolio check” mirrors the refresh loop of a betting app. A Discord group sharing “plays” replicates the social reinforcement of a poker table. The energy in the investment club often comes not from disciplined learning, but from risk that feels immediate and exciting, while the adults around them see only the word “investment.”
That’s why it slips past so easily. In prevention work focused on alcohol and other drugs, the warning signs are more visible, easier to name. Here, the signal reads as success. There are no obvious red flags. A teenager trading weekly options on a stock he found online can look, at a glance, like a student doing something responsible. The structure feels legitimate. The language sounds credible. The behavior is easy to misread. The highs are hidden, sometimes even celebrated, and the lows are easier still to miss.
What’s Actually Happening to the Developing Brain with “Investing”
This is not just a financial conversation. It’s a prevention conversation. At Prevention Ed, the primary concern is not financial loss, even though that is the consequence students most often name when they think about gambling. The concern is the adolescent brain: the impact on mental health, the shaping of reward pathways, and the increased risk for cross-addiction. That is why gambling, and now “investing” behaviors that mirror it, have become part of our curriculum.
The adolescent brain is built for reward-seeking. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for impulse control and long-term planning, continues developing into the mid-twenties. Activities built on high reward and high variability, like options trading, crypto speculation, and sports betting, exploit that imbalance. They deliver unpredictable outcomes, wins, losses, and near wins that trigger dopamine release and reinforce repetition. Over time, the brain learns to chase the next hit.
This is the mechanism. This is not about learning markets. It’s called a variable reward schedule. Any Psych 101 textbook explains how B. F. Skinner demonstrated it decades ago: unpredictable rewards create the most persistent behavior. It’s the same mechanism that drives addiction. The adolescent brain, still developing impulse control and reward regulation, is especially vulnerable to it.
What looks like investing on the surface can function, neurologically, like gambling. Constant checking of positions, emotional swings tied to short-term outcomes, and social reinforcement through group chats sharing “plays” are not neutral experiences. They actively shape how young people relate to risk, reward, and control.
A 2020 meta-analysis in the Journal of Gambling Studies found that earlier exposure to gambling is associated with a higher lifetime risk of developing a gambling disorder. There is little reason to expect a different pattern for teenagers engaging in high-risk trading behaviors through brokerage apps. Risk may be higher, given that these behaviors are often framed as responsible and even admirable.
The Investment Club on Your Campus
The investment club on your campus likely needs a check-in. Not to shut it down, but to understand what is actually happening. What does faculty oversight look like in practice? Is there a clear educational framework, or are students driving the agenda? Are they paper trading, or using real money? Are high-risk strategies like options or crypto speculation being discussed or encouraged? Schools should be asking these questions directly, because the line between education and unsupervised risk-taking has become increasingly blurred.
Policy matters here. Many schools do not have clear guidance on student trading, peer-to-peer “plays,” or real-money activity happening under the banner of a club. What behaviors are being normalized? What happens when a student loses money? Who is responsible for supervision? A well-run club can be a valuable learning space. Without structure, it can easily become something else.
What Schools Can Do
Concerned about students leaving class to go day trade in the bathroom stalls? We are too.
Here are practical steps schools can take.
Teach the difference between investing and gambling
A semester of personal finance is a strong starting point. It gives students a practical foundation to understand how money actually works, including the critical difference between long-term investing and short-term, high-risk behavior that often mirrors gambling.
Update handbook language and policy
Most school policies predate the current landscape and do not address options trading, crypto, or sports betting apps. Clarify expectations around trading during school hours, peer-to-peer wagering, and student-run investment clubs. As a starting point, use Prevention Ed’s free gambling/investing policy template.
Audit the Investment Club
Administration should review student activities to understand what is occurring in practice. This includes confirming whether there is appropriate faculty oversight, whether real money is involved, and whether high-risk strategies are being discussed or promoted. Based on these findings, schools should determine whether parent or guardian involvement is appropriate.
Modernize Media Literacy
Update media literacy to break down influencer messaging, including the incentives behind it, how content is designed to drive engagement, and how individuals earn money through affiliate links, sponsorships, and platform algorithms.
Define Gambling as a Health Issue
Gambling is the act of risking money or something of value on an outcome that is uncertain, with the intent of gaining more in return. While often normalized, gambling can lead to significant harm, particularly for adolescents.
Gambling disorder is recognized as a behavioral health condition. Associated harms include financial stress, academic decline, family conflict, and mental health challenges. At higher levels of severity, there can be increased risk for serious mental health outcomes, including suicidal thoughts, which underscores the importance of early identification and support.
Bring Parents Into the Conversation
Many parents are not aware of how accessible these platforms are or how students are using them. Schools can play a key role in bringing this to families’ attention and encouraging open, informed conversations at home. If a student is using financial or betting platforms, parents should review account activity regularly. If families choose to allow investing, it should occur through parent-supervised accounts with full transparency and clear boundaries.
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Mind the GAPS: Gambling & Gaming, Alcohol & Drugs, Pornography, and Social Media
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The Bottom Line
The Wolf of Wall Street was never the hero of that story. He was a felon. The people selling that image to your students know it, and they sell it anyway, because the fantasy is the product. Your students are the customers. What looks like ambition on the surface is often something else, a system designed to pull young people in by tapping into a sense that the odds are stacked against them and that this is the only real path to wealth.
This is not happening in isolation. It is the same playbook we see across gambling, alcohol and other drugs, pornography, and social media. This is why Prevention Ed developed the GAPS framework. These industries are not guessing. They are designing for predictable patterns in adolescent development. The reward circuitry is mapped. The insecurity points are known. The conversion funnels are built. The pace of new technology and accessibility only accelerates this, making it harder for parents, schools, regulators, and students themselves to recognize and navigate systems that are designed to capture attention, distort perceptions of risk, and drive behavior at scale.
We cannot keep using yesterday’s prevention strategies for today’s risks. The convergence of investing, gambling, and digital influence needs to be named clearly, brought into health classes and advisory, and recognized early by those working closest with students. Students do not need more warnings. They need clarity and prevention education that matches the world they are actually living in.