Wild West Winter: gambling, farmland, and train robberies

Edited by Julia Myers

It’s been a wild winter for a plethora of reasons, but topping off the season are unusual investment trends, train robberies in LA, and putting ice on your face? In this week's edition of The Inflection Point, we break down some of the top trends we have been following.

I. NY legalizes mobile sports gambling

On January 8th, 2022, New York became the 18th state to legalize mobile sports betting, joining its neighbors New Jersey and Pennsylvania. This week New York reported that its four mobile sportsbooks combined processed $603.1 million transactions, netting the state $48.2 million in gross revenue between January 8 and 16. Over the past two weeks, New York earned the title of having the most successful rollout of any state so far to legalize mobile sports betting.    

The impact score for “sports betting” has grown steadily since the Supreme Court lifted the federal ban on sports betting back in 2018. Similarly, the trend for “New York Sports Betting” has grown over the same period and has exploded over the past month. Sports betting will continue to dominate consumer conversation as more states legalize sports betting and realize the tremendous revenue potential from the industry.

II. Farmland real estate investing

Have you ever wanted to own a farm? Well, now you can - sort of. AcreTrader is an online farmland investment company that allows customers to invest in real farms to generate passive income. The company was launched in 2019 and connects farmers with investors interested in diversifying their real estate portfolio. The signal for AcreTrader has exploded in recent months and is projected to continue to grow in 2022.

III. LA train robbery

Amid a growing crime wave in California and other major US cities, Los Angeles has seen an explosion in train robberies in recent months. Images all over social media have shown plastic wrapping, amazon packages, and cardboard boxes slew across railroad tracks. Unfortunately, these robberies only compound the existing supply chain woes and put train workers' safety at risk. The impact score for “LA Train Robbery” has exploded the last two weeks and is projected to sustain momentum in our conversation for the next few months as lawmakers grapple to deal with the situation.

Broadly, America is seeing a growing crime wave, with homicides rates up 5% in 2021 from 2020 and 44% from 2019. Criminologists don’t know precisely why we are seeing such a surge in crime (there is still debate over the causes of the decline in crime in the 1990s). Still, most likely, it's a combination of factors ranging from school closures, economic conditions, reduced police budgets, and general discontent among youth. The impact score for “Crime Wave” is seasonal, peaking in the summer months, but as we can see above, this winter even saw a spike in the conversation for the trend. Like in previous years, the “Crime Wave” discussion is forecasted to continue to grow and potentially surpass the last two years.

IV. Winter fashion’s silver “lining” is made of sherpa

It’s hardly a surprise that people are searching for warm clothing during a winter of weather extremes, but sherpa-lined items - including hoodies (up 212% this winter), coats, and blankets, in particular, are conversation starters across social media. Sherpa is a fabric that is made from polyester or cotton that is meant to resemble wool that is worn by the Sherpa people in Nepal. Sherpa fabric is vegan (it does not use any real animal wool) which contributes to its growing popularity.

V. Ice on the ground, ice on the face

If the weather in your area isn’t cold enough to make your face go numb, don’t worry - you can always ice your face yourself. Facial icing is the latest trend where you apply ice to your face. Facial icing is supposed to lower the temperature of your skin to raise blood to the surface. The benefits of this practice include reduced facial swelling and puffiness, lessening the appearance of "bags" under your eyes, and can reduce pores and wrinkles. The signal for "facial icing" is up 400% over the past 3 months and is forecasted to sustain its momentum into this year - so it looks like this trend isn't going away anytime soon.

While you wrap up in your sherpa-lined items and wonder when your amazon package will arrive (spoiler alert: it’s sitting on the tracks at a station in LA), it’s a good time to think about smart investments during the stock market dip. Whether it’s farmland, crypto, or a little sports betting, money is flowing in different directions than many expected - good thing we’re catching the trends first. Stay warm and informed with our weekly pulses, and check out our new Nwo.ai Markets newsletter, where we cover the latest financial trends our AI spotted first.

About NWO.ai
NWO.ai's predictive platform enables leading Fortune 500 companies and government agencies to anticipate and track global cultural shifts by aggregating, analyzing, and producing actionable reports on human-generated data. We are leveraging petabytes of external, noisy, and unstructured data from various sources –including search, social media, blogs, news, patent databases, SEC filings and we are continuously adding more sources. Our mission is to answer the what, when, and most importantly, 'why' behind a consumer trend and enable our customers to detect these shifts as early as possible.

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