I think so because you are mentally prepared. If you believe the deck has only face cards, you might want to bet it all -- but what if you're wrong? What is your priority in trading the markets, comfort or profit?
Can the market be kind to you? when you had a good day...were you lucky? or just at the right place at the right time? was time on your side?... did the eye in the sky let you watch first? could watching make what is a chance, into a "not gamble token"
Would you consider owning a casino gambling? The odds are in your favor but you can still lose. Does a chance of loss imply gambling? Not if the odds are in your favor.
This all depends on the following: 1) What standard of trader you are. 2) How much capital you have to trade. 3) The individuals reasons for trading. 4) Time factor. Get the correct ingredients, and the markets are an absolute certainty. An individual is certain to make money! Sorry for bringing this up again.
Gambling to me implies that eventually you will lose. Maybe I should go look up the definition. There are professional gamblers who make a living doing that. It's like anything else. Study, know the mathematics of the odds, study, sleep occasionally, study some more, work harder and eventually you will succeed. Is the result of anything in life certain ? (besides death and taxes of course) A good friend of mine was just fired from his 0 risk job. He devastated and now trading side by side with me.
It's simply not gambling. Trading is an assessment of many things. You have to assess some things obviously: price action company book value holdings future prospects etc. etc. But what is so different than building a casino? You have assess: supply demand market conditions prospects for growth etc. etc. You never know EVERYTHING about any business venture and trading, although it can be affected by averse and out of nowhere items, so can any business. A construction site on a new hotel can be sidelined by downpouring rain for months on end. I don't think you can call trading "gambling" except in very limited cases. One more post in a sea of posts.
If you went to the track and bet on a horse to win. Game over. Take your best stock pick, place your bet. At any point during the race (your time frame) you can change your mind, raise the bet or take back your bet. I opine it is not gambling.
Another reason that trading is not the same as gambling is because in trading, everyone sees the same information... chart patterns, level 2 quotes, time and sales, news sources, etc.. People act on the information differently, but the information is available to everyone to make a bet on future price movement. Take a pro poker player and a professional trader, and I bet the trader will have more up days than the gambler. Even the "money management" in poker is skewed. If you want to raise, how much should you raise by?.. and if someone raises you, how do you know if that amount is over priced for the cards in your hand? in poker, there isn't really a way of tracking other players performance other than by looking at their stack over time. Unless you're some MIT brain child and can chart all this stuff in your head. Every hand is random and so are the actions of the players, but in the market, there are many, many predictable situations both before and after the event has occurred.