True. Online is way much harder, casinos should be a mixture. But the point is to make money so why make it harder for yourself? You play poker too?
These days, only online for fun. I tried the casino thing, the online thing with real money, and the home games. I can see where real casino games with total strangers would be fun. No holds-barred, skill against skill. The online thing is shit though, because you can collude on a live money table with a simple network of friends and a chat program. Home games for real money? Those are the worst, because you are giving/taking money from friends and family, and that will always eventually come back to bite you in the ass.
Home games are not always with friends. Sometimes its those underground games where they the host will invite their network of players. But at the end of the day, these hosts make the most money in the long run because of the 5% rake. Which can easily add up to more than 1k/day in a $1/$2 game.
I vote that trading is not gambling.. and here's why: It feels completely different to me to be trading vs what it feels like to be in a casino playing any of the games. I do not enjoy being in casinos nor gambling in a casino on any of the games. It's just boring and does not interest me. I don't feel that way about trading. Not at all.
Trading is as much gambling as ... - choosing a car you hope won't turn out to be a lemon - choosing a class/professor you hope won't be a waste of time - choosing a career you hope remains viable in a changing economy - choosing a spouse you hope will turn out to be "happily ever after" - choosing a house/neighborhood/school system you hope won't turn out to be a headache - pivoting hard during a basketball game with other mid-30s guys hoping knee doesn't blow out - raising kids ............ of well, if you've done it, you get it - choosing job and/or career changes hoping you don't end up with regrets - choosing a financial planner you hope will guide you to a comfortable early retirement Actually ... as I look at the list above ... turns out Trading, with reasonable risk management, is much less of a gamble than I thought !
With trading, you do not get a do-over when you blow your account. All the bits you cited above is not gambling, they are choices which you can escape. With trading, you can place a stop. With true gambling, there is only one choice...Lose everything you have put in and never get it back, or risk nothing yet gain nothing.
Maybe ... but all of the items I cited are painful to recover from ... even more so than with trading. I've known guys who went thru awful divorces, blown out knees, terrible career decisions, and one whose house foundation started crumbling a couple years after he bought the house. They didn't find any escape ... just painful, painful, ...... painful recovery. The point is that all those choices, just like choices we make in trading, involve risk and potential downside. Choosing to pivot hard during a basketball game in your mid-30s has far worse potential downside than any single trading choice I've ever made