The American dream is “very dead” for millennials and Gen Z, according to financial influencer Haley Sacks, better known as Mrs. Dow Jones. In an interview with Business Insider, Sacks argued that traditional markers of middle-class success, homeownership, stable careers, retirement savings, have become functionally inaccessible to younger Americans, pushing them toward gambling and side hustles as alternative paths to wealth.

The claim lands against a backdrop of record-breaking numbers in the US gambling industry. The American Gaming Association reported that US commercial gaming revenue hit nearly 79 billion dollars in 2025, an all-time high, with sports betting revenue reaching nearly 17 billion dollars, up roughly 23 percent year over year, and iGaming revenue exceeding ten billion dollars for the first time.

Young Americans are driving a significant share of that growth. A 2026 Northwestern Mutual survey found that 32 percent of Gen Z respondents and 24 percent of millennials either participate in or are considering sports betting, rates far above older age groups.

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Sacks, a Fortune 40 Under 40 honouree and founder of the financial education company Finance is Cool, frames the shift as rational rather than reckless. Her argument is that when a starter home costs multiples of a young worker’s annual salary and student debt averages roughly 33,000 dollars for millennials and 22,000 dollars for Gen Z, gambling starts to look like one of the few available shots at a life-changing sum of money.

The economic data offers some support for the underlying frustration. A Beyond Finance survey from March 2026 found that more than 70 percent of Gen Z and millennial respondents described their spending as “survival mode,” covering essentials with little left for saving or investing. The economic anxiety is showing up in other ways too, with university graduates booing commencement speakers who tell them AI will transform their careers while the entry-level job market contracts around them.

But the leap from economic frustration to gambling as a wealth strategy is where the argument runs into trouble. A joint study by researchers at UCLA, USC, and Harvard found that the introduction of online sports betting in a state was associated with a ten percent increase in the likelihood of bankruptcy among young adults. States that added mobile wagering saw a 25 percent increase.

The researchers found that the convenience of phone-based betting, available around the clock and requiring no trip to a casino, was a key driver of financial distress. The pattern is particularly concentrated among men under 35, the same demographic most aggressively targeted by sportsbook advertising.

Gambling addiction among young Americans is rising alongside the revenue. NPR has reported on a growing number of young adults presenting with gambling-related debt, with counsellors noting that many entered sports betting through free-bet promotions and social media advertising that framed wagering as a skill-based investment rather than a game of chance.

Sacks acknowledged in the Business Insider interview that gambling is not a financial plan, but argued the impulse behind it reveals something real about how disconnected traditional financial advice has become from the economic reality facing people under 40. She pointed to the gap between the advice young people receive, save consistently, invest in index funds, buy a home, and a housing market and labour environment that make following that advice feel impossible.

The tension between those two realities is not new, but its scale is. Tech layoffs framed as AI transformation have eliminated tens of thousands of entry-level and mid-career roles across the industry since 2024, compounding the sense among younger workers that the system is not built for them.

The financial services industry has noticed the shift. Betting platforms and fintech apps increasingly market themselves to younger users with language borrowed from investing, offering “portfolios” of bets and “research tools” that blur the line between trading and wagering. European regulators have started cracking down on prediction markets that straddle that same boundary, with Spain blocking Polymarket and Kalshi for operating without gambling licences.

In the US, the regulatory picture is more permissive. Thirty-eight states and Washington DC now allow some form of legal sports betting, up from just one state in 2018. The expansion has been driven by state governments attracted to tax revenue and by a Supreme Court ruling that struck down the federal ban on sports gambling.

It is worth noting some caveats about the framing. Sacks is a financial influencer and content creator, not an economist, and her conclusions are based on anecdotal observation and her audience’s experience rather than peer-reviewed research. The gambling industry’s record revenue does not by itself prove that young people are gambling instead of saving, it could reflect broader population growth in legal markets, more states coming online, or increased spending by existing bettors across all age groups.

The correlation between economic anxiety and gambling behaviour is well documented in academic literature, but correlation is not causation. Some young adults may gamble because they feel economically hopeless, others may gamble for entertainment, and the two groups likely overlap in ways the available data does not cleanly separate.

What the numbers do show clearly is that a generation facing record housing costs, significant student debt, and a contracting entry-level job market is also gambling at historically high rates, and that the financial consequences of that gambling are falling disproportionately on the youngest and most economically vulnerable bettors. Whether that represents a rational response to an irrational economy, as Sacks argues, or a dangerous coping mechanism being exploited by a rapidly expanding industry, depends on which side of the bankruptcy statistics you are standing on.

OS platforms

Bird-branded AI will ride on Stonking Stingray

Canonical has published more details about the local speech-to-text engine that will take dictation in the forthcoming Ubuntu version 26.10, aka “Stonking Stingray.”

In a post on the company’s Discourse forums on Wednesday, the outfit named one of the most significant new elements that’s coming in the next version: Myna: Speech to Text for Ubuntu Desktop.

Earlier this month, we reported from the Ubuntu Summit that Canonical was going big on AI and that one of the first signs would be speech-to-text input via locally run speech-recognition models. After the Summit, the company then published the Ubuntu Desktop 26.10 “Stonking Stingray” Roadmap, as we mentioned towards the end of our review of MX Linux 25.2.

The announcement explains – and illustrates – what the plan is, how it will work, and the user interface that the team is aiming for in the initial release:

For Ubuntu 26.10, we’re deliberately focusing on the basics: a reliable desktop dictation.

The initial experience will be simple: Press a keyboard shortcut, speak naturally, and see the resulting text appear in the application you’re using. Myna is designed to provide speech recognition with clear visual feedback while dictation is active.

This is good stuff. Although it won’t be an accessibility revolution on its own, it’s an important step and will help desktop Linux catch up with the commercial competition. Speech recognition is built into Apple’s macOS in a tool called Voice Control. On modern Macs with Apple Silicon processors, the recognition engine is on-device and works offline. For a few months in 2023, The Reg’s FOSS desk was unable to use his right arm, and when he returned to work, he dictated his articles into an M1 MacBook Air using this feature.

Register columnist Colin Hughes knows much more about such matters than we do. He wrote about how Voice Control needed more work later that same year, and he returned to the subject on Global Accessibility Awareness Day – May 21.

Microsoft’s current offering is called Voice Access, which is replacing the Windows Speech Recognition tool that Microsoft introduced with Windows Vista in 2006.

The Myna project will be open source, and there’s already a GitHub repository for it, but there’s not very much there yet beyond some planning notes. There’s time: although the October release of 26.10 is only about four months away, this is not a major new pioneering technology. Various tools can already do similar things.

One of the first was Mycroft, although it is no longer around: some three years ago, The Register described how the creator of the Linux virtual assistant blamed a “patent troll” for the project’s death. There is also Michal Kosciesza’s Speech Note tool, which you can install from Flathub.

Last August, we reported on the release of FFmpeg 8, which can use the local whisper.cpp version of OpenAI’s Whisper model to do on-device speech-to-text, enabling it to automatically add subtitles to video files.

Although this writer is unconcerned about being labelled an AI hater, we do feel allowing voice control of a PC is an acceptable and beneficial role for the technology. Or as the author of jqwik and noted AI skeptic Johannes Link put it, an Ethical Use of Generative AI. ®

VIRTUALIZATION

Soaring PC prices make alternatives to hardware refreshes interesting

Your next work PC could live in the cloud. A couple of years ago, the Cloud Software Group – the private-equity-owned vendor that mashed up Citrix with Tibco – built a tool to analyze the ideal desktop environment for its users, a cost-control exercise aimed at ensuring it wasn’t spending big on under-utilized endpoints. Last month, the company productized the result and put it on sale under the name “Citrix DaaS Flex.”

The product is effectively a front for Citrix’s existing portfolio of desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) and application publishing tools. Deploying Flex starts with an assessment of an organization’s endpoint fleet, which general manager for the company’s DaaS portfolio Shawn Bass told The Register often includes many inappropriate machines.

Bass believes that few organizations have the data to understand which cloudy PC instance types are appropriate for their users, or experience running fleets of hosted PCs, so they end up paying too much for virtual machines that have far more performance than some users require. Others, he said, end up with bill shock if they sign up for consumption-based pricing. Some use virtual PCs when they can easily get by with a hosted managed browser locked into certain SaaS sites and published apps.

Once Citrix figures out what your users need, it suggests “personas” – a collection of templates that suit different users. Bass said that organizations often need three personas – one each for task workers, knowledge workers, and power users. A persona could involve a full cloud PC, a managed browser, or just access to published apps.

Whatever the recommendation, Citrix goes and makes it all happen. Users don’t see the company’s products; they just get to consume endpoints. Citrix runs the virtual PCs in Azure.

Citrix charges for Flex using a system of credits. It might price a virtual PC for a power user at 60 credits a month, for example. After assessing users’ endpoint needs, Citrix will propose a credit budget, and a deal spanning three or more years and billed monthly. Users can hold back some credits to take into account seasonal usage spikes – Bass suggested retailers who add staff for Christmas shopping might plan to use more credits for a couple of months a year, without exceeding the total credits available over the life of a contract.

Citrix budgets for virtual PCs to run between 10 and 14 hours a day. If users burn the midnight oil and incur extra Azure costs, that’s Citrix’s problem.

Bass told us that Citrix plans to bring Flex into other hyperscale clouds and is also looking to make it work with on-prem platforms. The Reg suspects that will mean long-time partners like Nutanix get a look-in. A version for the channel is also in the works.

When we cover virtual desktops, readers often note that accessing a cloudy PC requires an actual PC, or another device, and suggest that’s wasteful.

Bass thinks the times may now suit DaaS, because the high price of memory means PC fleet refreshes are more expensive. Cloudy desktops, he thinks, therefore represent an upgrade path. Of course, he would say that because Citrix offers its own lightweight OS – eLux from Unicon – tailored to remote access and which comfortably runs on old PCs. Bass said customer interest in that offering is rising. ®

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,400 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today – or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc’s Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.

Strands is the NYT’s latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it’s great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc’s Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

• Only one in four F-35s achieved full mission capability
• Mission capable rates fell sharply between 2021 and 2025
• Software delays continue affecting readiness across newly delivered aircraft

The Pentagon’s F-35 fighter fleet continues to face readiness challenges despite years of investment, modernization efforts, and sustained contractor support, as a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found only 25% of the aircraft were fully mission capable during fiscal 2025.

According to the GAO, the fleet’s mission-capable rate declined from 67% in fiscal 2021 to 44% in fiscal 2025.

Call of Duty fans were understandably excited when Treyarch confirmed that Black Ops and Black Ops 2 are coming to modern PlayStation consoles in July. Both games are among the most beloved entries in the series, and PlayStation players have been locked out of easy access to them for years unless they still had older hardware.

That excitement may not last if the latest pricing clues are accurate. As pointed out by Call of Duty tracker CharlieIntel (via Gaming Bible), Black Ops and Black Ops 2 recently received store updates on PC and Xbox. Each base game is now listed at $40, individual DLC packs cost $10 each, season passes are priced at $30, and microtransaction camos or personalization packs are now free.

The math looks rough

The important part is that this could hint at how the upcoming PS4 and PS5 ports will be priced. If Activision follows the same structure on PlayStation, buying both base games would cost $80 before any DLC.

That is where things get harder to defend. These are 14- and 16-year-old games from the PS3 era, not new releases built for modern hardware. Black Ops has four major DLC packs: First Strike, Escalation, Annihilation, and Rezurrection. Black Ops 2 also has four: Revolution, Uprising, Vengeance, and Apocalypse. At $10 each, that adds another $80 across both games. In other words, owning both ports with all major DLC could cost around $160 if everything is sold separately.

Even using season passes would not make this feel cheap. These are not remakes or remasters. Activision has reportedly described them as re-releases, which means players should not expect major visual upgrades, new content, or a proper modern overhaul.

Fans are already annoyed

Personal tech

Techie couldn’t help but be a little blunt when the support call came in – but has no regrets!

ON CALL Welcome to another edition of On Call, The Register’s reader-contributed Friday column in which you share your stories of troublesome tech support incidents.

This week, meet a reader we’ll Regomize as “Cooper” who told us that his employer uses an MS Word document to record incoming orders.

“It includes a table with two columns: the left column contains a description of the data to be entered in the right column – things like product, SKU, quantity, customer name,” Cooper explained. “Our sales team uses it to record new orders, then our fulfillment team reviews, validates, and submits for delivery.”

Cooper knows this is an archaic approach, but his employer has used this document for ages and doesn’t want to change.

“This means we do a lot of educating on the process,” Cooper told On Call.

That effort worked well enough for years, but Cooper’s company recently hired a new person called “Mitch” to review the forms before sending them to the fulfillment team.

“One day, Mitch comes to me absolutely flustered by an issue a colleague was having with the form,” Cooper told On Call.

Because the form is just a form – all users need to do is fill in the blanks – Cooper found the request strange but did the right thing and dug into the issue.

Mitch’s complaint centered on the fact that the text in some forms was underlined in red – evidence Word’s built-in spell checker at work. “I don’t understand the red lines, what do I do?” Mitch asked Cooper, adding a plaintive and panicked request to “Please HELP!!!”

Cooper told On Call the chap who filled in the form was in his 60s, so ignorance of how Word works is plausible and perhaps understandable. But Mitch was in his 40s and his ignorance seemed inexcusable.

“My answer was fairly blunt and straightforward: I told Mitch this is just how MS Word works, and that an SKU is not a normal word in the dictionary so the spell checker was bound to kick in.

“You can tell the seller to ignore it, or they can turn off the spell checker,” he added.

Have you been asked to support tech you think it’s safe to assume everyone already understands? If so, click here to send On Call an email so we can share your story on a future Friday. The On Call mailbag is a little light at the moment, so new submissions are very welcome! ®  

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

I think today’s Wordle puzzle is one of the toughest of the year. It’s an unusual word, and it features a pretty rare letter. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Read more: New Study Reveals Wordle’s Top 10 Toughest Words of 2025

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has three vowels.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with O.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with E.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to something egg-shaped.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is OVATE.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, June 21, No. 1828, was ALIBI.

Recent Wordle answers

June 17, No. 1824: TOKEN

June 18, No. 1825: ENTRY

June 19, No. 1826: EMOJI

June 20, No. 1827: DRAKE