Most people lose money because they do not know how to make them in the first place (i.e. they do not have alpha). Risk management is important because it reduces your path dependency as a trader but it does not change your expectation.
Imagine you go to a casino, walk over to roulette table and place a bet? Does the sizing on the bet (a.k.a. risk management) change your statistical expectation (which approximately -5%)? By sizing your bets smartly, you can make your money last and maybe get a few free drinks, but you are not changing the outcome.
In addition, you have no idea what risk management is if you think that it is part and parcel bet sizing.
Except blackjack where exactly money management is how card counters make their money. When the card count is against them they bet small when it is favorable they bet big. We already refuted you in this silly money management idea, sle is right, you are wrong, give it up.
Incorrect BlackJack has no analogous correlation to trading. As far as being refuted, nothing has come close to refutation yet. Prudent Risk Management is everything in trading---there is nothing else.
Truth. I call it my USS Maddox (the ship in question court the Gulf of Tonkin resolution) approach to trading. If you stay afloat for long enough and keep yourself exposed, eventually you'll get hit. If you're bullish and manage risk, you can suck at price calls and still make money just because you never lose enough to get taken out, and the market's tendency to grow will pick up the difference. My option strategy is entirely predicated on my inability to generate an "edge" in directional trades. The strategy only deals in risk management, and has no entry signal component (I use basic mean reversion candlesticking to select candidates, but I'm pretty sure a shotgun approach would generate similar results).
You know what I've found to be really similar? Gaming vs. trading. I love to game online and play FPS. I noticed that when I played a lot and our team lost, I would get pretty pissed off at myself and others on my team. I would call out another player for doing something stupid. I would assign blame to any and everyone except myself. I noticed that I was getting pretty toxic when playing. I took a break from gaming to try and figure out why I was getting so angry from losing. What I found was that people don't like to lose or be wrong because we never want to acknowledge that we're the ones that were possibly wrong. I forced myself to play the next couple dozen games and compliment others even when we lost. I'd compliment the other team on a deserved win and I would review how I played in the game and would try to find where I went wrong. When it comes to trading, I think a lot of people approach it with a "fuck the market, I'm right" mindset. If they get into a trade and the trade goes red, they sometimes double down and hold the position because, "fuck you, market, I know I'm right -- this is bullshit!" Then when they would get a trade that was moving in the right direction, they'd get giddy and pull the handle and take profits early. Basically, doing everything the reverse of how you should (let your good trades run and cut your bad trades quickly). The absolute hardest thing about becoming a zen trader is the realization that most of your trades will most likely be wrong. The way one would make money from being wrong most of the time is risk management and getting out of a trade that doesn't go according to plan and to hold a trade that is running into profits. Imagine in real life if someone sat you down and said, "Hey John! I'm going to list off 20 things you do wrong for every 1 thing you do right." Nobody would want to be in that position. At the end of the day, the market isn't out to get you. It's just a place where a bunch of people (and computer programs) are all trying to do the same thing -- make profits. That sometimes means that two traders will take opposite sides. If you can learn to accept small losses and a lot of them and remain positive without getting pissed off, fearful, etc. -- then you have already moved into the next phase of becoming a zen trader.