On “Confetti Regulation”: The Wrong Way to Regulate Gamified Investing

“Gamified” investment apps like Robinhood use behavioral psychology to encourage frequent and often maladaptive trading activity. To address that problem, securities regulators may be tempted to regulate app design. Such an approach might involve bans on casino imagery, push notifications, confetti, or other aspects of the user experience. But that approach could draw the entire field of securities law into a techno-libertarian First Amendment thicket. This Essay describes the First Amendment litigation that regulators risk provoking, as well as the damage that they might do to the broader project of securities law. The Essay also proposes a strategy for regulators to avoid unnecessary litigation risk while still protecting consumers from the risks of gamified investing.