there are brokers regulated by 10 authorities. you have 100gbp on deposit you exchange it for 50 pounds for dollars they say you have 50 pounds equity. you say can you sort that out its really important you understand what equity means and they say you need to put more funds in. its just a fucking disaster for everyone im not sure exactly how best to change it.
If you are a construction company for example that participate in various selection procedures for large projects you surely need to invest some money into the process. In many occasions your construction company will not be selected and another one will be preferred So since you are never sure about the outcome (you won't be selected in 100% of selection procedures) running such company might be considered as "gambling" Ok, who cares?
%% Well since gambling is illegal in many places-it can pay to care.And since the lotto is a stupid tax on people that can't do math=it can pay to know the difference/care .,
No way, trading cannot be called gambling in any way . Gambling is staking something on a contingency whereas trading is the buying and selling of securities through a stock exchange .Trading is backed up by reasons meaning a cause and effect relationship can be established . No such relationship can be established in gambling. While gambling is mostly illegal , trading is not illegal at all. In fact it is backed by laws , rules of a country . A trader works on the concept of risk management while he trades whereas a gambler works only on higher risk, higher reward. Also, trading is strategy based whereas gambling is sheer luck.
You don't seem to understand there are two types of gambling - one is a game of pure chance (like a lottery or roulette), the other involves skills/knowledge/expertise (like horse race betting, blackjack or trading). Unfortunately English only has one word for both. I live in the UK, where gambling is regulated and perfectly legal.
Anything you do that has a win or lose outcome is gambling. With most gambling, you probability of winning is limited to 50% or less. With Trading, you probability can exceed 50% and thus is the reason most of us think it is not gambling.
Call it what you like. But yeah it is gambling. Not gambling like slots or roulette or keno or craps or baccarat. Gambling like poker or maybe blackjack. Here is my justification. Not all gambling is 100% chance. Some games have a skill element. If you watch poker tournaments on TV, at every high level game you will notice that 75% of the faces you see around the table were there last year. That is because skill can overcome "bad luck", at least in the long run. That's not to say that you can't occasionally take a bad beat in spite of being a very good player, but you know how to manage your money and manage your risk, and live to play another day. Does that sound familiar? It should, if you are a trader. There are professional players who don't bother with tournament play because the odds/payoff suck except for the top half dozen players who know they are gonna make a pile of dough. Yes, professional players you have never heard of, playing in Nevada and the California poker rooms and underground or kitchen table games all over the country. And that is all that they do, is play poker, and some make a pretty decent living at it. And yet, even though it is their occupation, we call it gambling. The law calls it gambling. The IRS calls it gambling. You call it gambling. Trading, even from a position of skill and experience, has risks, same as poker. You can get unlucky and take a bad beat, same as poker. If you are really good, you will make more than you lose, same as poker. If you are VERY good, you can make a fine living at it, same as poker. And you feed on the weak players, same as poker. Your skill matters, and though you can lose a lot in a day, you control your losses, and your wins are big enough or common enough to make up for the losses. Same as poker. Some guys trade like they are at the race track or an OTB parlor. Nearly all will fail. So yeah you can trade like a track junkie. You can even trade like a slots addict if you like. But the smart trader plays like a smart poker player. He gambles, but with an edge. He takes way more than his fair share of the cookies from the table and leaves the weak players wondering what the hell just happened. Doesn't matter if you do it for a living. Doesn't matter if you never or almost never have a losing day. Doesn't matter if at the end of the year you have improved your account by $300k or $300 or lost $50k. Doesn't matter if you are experienced and skilled and even have a degree or two. Doesn't matter what you choose to call it. It is gambling. Maybe with an edge, but it is gambling. And there is not a damn thing wrong with gambling, with an edge.
One of the most logical replies seen in a long time, good work. Many traders hate the term gambling because of the stigma attached. I'm not only a gambler but also addicted. I follow trading 7 days a week, night and day. Do I feel embarrassed? No!
I agree that the best analogy for equating anything relating trading to gambling would be a form of poker, since there are no house odds against you. You are just pitting your skill against another player(s). But I realized after reading this thread, one of many, that I can find an even better analogy against it. In a game like Hold 'Em, you can eventually get to the point where you are "all in" and all your money is in the middle. At that point you are at the mercy of the remaining cards of the flop. That is GAMBLING. But once you are all in, if the flop does not work out in your favor, you are done. Yer out. With trading, you can go "all-in" in a way, but you CAN place a stop in your trade that says "Well, if I start losing on the trade, I will lose only 10% of what I have in the middle if the hand does not go my way. That is TRADING. You CANNOT place a stop in poker. You can't put all your chips in the middle and then say to everyone, "If I lose this hand, I get 90% of what I put in the middle back into my bank account." But you can in trading. And THAT is what distinguishes trading from gambling. Can we give this a rest now? hehe.
I have never been all in. If I don't have enough to properly play the game with what I budgeted for the game, I am done. Doesn't matter if it is 7 Stud, Hold 'Em, or kitchen table 5 card draw with dueces jokers and one eye jacks wild and dealer antes twice if he's not Jacks or better and can't discard a 7. Cut yer throat poker with pros at the table, or bullshit schoolboy poker, it's all the same. That means at least 50x the minimum bet but in practice I use 100x. And if my total stake is down 10%, I am done. Doing anything else is playing with scared money. I don't day trade google, and I don't play in $100/$200 games. I play or trade in an arena where I can afford to be and where I can handle the action. My poker days are long over but my trading days are just beginning. And my money management is the one takeaway that is keeping my head above water right now as I learn this new game I am in. I do indeed set a stop loss in poker. All good players do. Only weak players play without a stop loss. If sitting in for another hand might put me over, then I get up and leave. Live to play another day. Of course there are some traders who brag about never using a stop. It's all good. If it doesn't seem like gambling to you, or you just don't think of it that way, it's cool. But it looks, acts, quacks, and waggles its tail feathers like gambling to me. Gives me the exact same feeling, too. A satisfying little thrill when I win a hand. A sad little "awwwwwww!" when I lose one. But never a deep depressed groan because just like poker, I manage my money and keep my losses for any one sitting in check. I know there will always be another game and I will still have enough to sit in for a statistically meaningful number of hands. The only difference I can think of, and it is kinda moot I think, is I have never played either online poker or video poker which to me is not really poker. I have of course traded online, though.