I started betting on sports at the age of 15, and I will never forget that day, because I won my first bet. I was pretty good at betting on small odds, but of course, on the long run, I started losing money. At some point I understood that I would like to make betting a priority and start earning some serious money. I've invested 5000$ on a strategy in tennis, I made 3000$ in the first two weeks but afterwards lost everything because of the lack of discipline. Now I sometimes spend money in online casinos, but I only play where the bookmakers aren't brands for GamStop users.
The correct definition of "gambling" is, "betting to win when the odds of winning and the payout percentages/amounts are against you... and you can't put those odds in your favor regardless of what you do". For example, betting a "hard" number in craps. The odds of making it are 36:1. The payout if you do, 30:1. The diff is the house's edge.
%% Nothing like a HIGH probability. D Guppy says ''never confuse a high probability with infallibility'' Amen
"Scataphagos said: When you go for a walkabout, ever run into Crocodile Dundee? What's he like?" - Heck with Crocodile Dundee... ever met the SketchSHE chicks?
As a good trader you should always be prepared to take action and correct your mistake if the market goes against you. You should have a contingency plan just in case. Trading should be considered like gardening, you dont just place a trade and hope for the best, there is maintenance involved to get your trade where you want, to a close in profit.
Gambling is placing a coin in a slot machine and pulling the lever. This to market is like opening any chart and placing an order in any direction and hope to be profitable. If that's how you trade, than yes you are a gambler. The more gamblers in the market the more money to be made
I spotted trading, particularly day trading, as gambling right from the start. I don't have a problem with that. My gambling addiction, if you want to call it that, is a very small part of me. I recognize the addiction rearing its ugly little head when I see a trade going bad and I ask myself why the hell I went in on it, anyway. Most of the time I try to apply good gambling principles to my trading. It isn't gambling if you know FOR A FACT that a trade will be profitable within the specified time frame. This can never be the case, though, without insider knowledge. If there is uncertainty and you are betting on it going one way or the other after calculating or estimating the odds, it is gambling. If you are just picking a direction and betting out and saying "go baby, GO!" then it is still gambling but it is bad gambling. Not gambling as in slot machines, more like gambling as in poker or blackjack, where skillful play can beat the game over the long run if you are capitalized enough to ride out a few bad beats, and enough to pay for the "lessons" while learning the basics. There are many gambles in life. Gambles in business. Gambles in love and marriage. Gambles in doing your income tax. Gambles in driving to work. What is ever certain? Not much. But we base decisions on expected outcome and sometimes bet out strongly or weakly, trying to get in the hand cheap, or we hedge our bet. Then winning or losing the bet reinforces or changes our behavior and strategy. That horse has an interesting name. $100 to win! Awwww, he placed. Well, at least he didn't come in dead last. Okay, now this horse in the next race doesn't have a cute name but he has won or placed in his last three races against horses that have beat every other horse in the lineup. $1k to win, Odds look not great but good, telling me other betters recognize a strong horse. And they're OFF!!! <gallopity gallopity gallop gallop> And Sorry POS wins by half a length!!!! I go pick up my $3500 from the window, knowing that i made a well reasoned bet that paid off, but there was a chance that i could have just lost my $!k because i didn't hedge. Calculated risk and i calculated correctly and I would do it again next week. Watch that horse. When he has a following but he isn't looking so strong, bet against him. When he finishes a race poorly and public sentiment is against him but i see the bigger pattern and i have watched him train, or I hear he just recovered from an infection or had a substitute trainer or the last jockey isn't consistent or took too many chances, maybe I buck the trend because i see reason to bet that horse same as before. How is trading all that different? I take chances. I try to base decisions on patterns, and also on situational details and relevant events. I gauge the collective sentiment of other bettors and decide if going with the flow or swimming upstream will have the better chances of profit. Is everybody else right, or wrong? What do i see that they don't, or what do they see that i don't? It's not roullete or keno gambling. It is a game where skill can be applied and the smart player can win more tokes than he loses, over the long run. There are elements of pleasure in trading. There is a certain thrill of the chance and the chase. There is satisfaction in a nice win. There is even sometimes some camaraderie around the table. Then there are guys who are all business and never break a sweat, never crack a smile. It's a job, pure and simple. Most of us have elements of both. No different from gambling for fun or gambling for a living because it is my occupation, or somewhere in between, a hobby that with diligent effort can pay for itself as long as weaker players keep bringing money to the table and stronger players don't take all of mine. if you think trading isn't gambling, your definition of gambling is too limited. You don't have to have dice or cards or a lottery ticket in your hand to be gambling. A mouse works jsut as well.
Agree with everything in this post. But there are some or many on ET who still insist trading is not gambling. The only logical reason I can think they are in this denial imo, because they dont want to admit to friends, wife, gf, they gamble. To them, gamblers are degenerates and therefore wish to distance themselves from this public perception that gamblers will end up sooner or later in the gutter.