I've been betting on sports on and off , and i can tell you it's not that bad , in fact it takes much less money than trading , and its not rigged. Why this foking government don't let people to place bets on sports , but it's ok to blow money on stocks. Any thoughts?
There was an interesting piece on 20/20 or 60 minutes of a well know sports better. He just gamed the spreads basically. Why is online poker outlawed is another question for our socialistic gov't.
Gambling is a very volatile business and the short term euphoria it causes can have long term pain. Other than that short term euphoria it provides no real benefit to society but can attract some negative elements (even where it is legal). Most cities where it is legal are not wealthy despite the influx of cash and tourists. It's a matter of opinion whether individual freedoms outweigh prosperity of society. Trading can be gambling, and where it is: day trading, etc, it is more regulated. But in general investing does provide value to society and trading helps foster investing.
Someone paraphrased once about this: to the non-trader, trading does look like gambling, so that the non-trader tends to think of someone wanting to learn to trade will always look like they have a mental disorder. http://www.thefix.com/content/basketball-junkie-comes-clean-new-memoir 1. This one is just from yesterday. I heard it on the radio. And all those games colleges are vacating. You think the people who bet those games are getting their money back because this team or that team vacated the wins? How about people who bet on Reggie Bush to win the Heisman? Did they get their money back? And it's always going on. From the point shaving scandal of the 50s in New York, to the Malaysian sports books paying for goals in the English Premiere League...cmon, I'm sure you have heard of one. Everyone has. How about the Italian Serie A referees 2 years ago? There is too much money to be made on fixing sporting venues. 2. When you trade, you participate in the market. You affect the market. You cannot do that with a tennis match, unless you jump out of the stands and stab a player or something. The outcome of a sports bet depends on the outcome of a match. The market never resolves. You can move in and out of the market many times in an hour. There are many ways in which trading and gambling differ. Spend 15 minutes thinking about it, and you will come up with a list a meter long.
What about live sports betting which resembles trading and it's huge in Europe and Asia . In both situations you make educated guesses , you can parlay up 100 dollars to 5k if you are good at it, in trading it's almost impossible to do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6FAUQ6SFKM Las Vegas sports betting legend Bill Walters has never had a losing year - a winning a streak that's made odds makers call him the "most dangerous sports bettor in Nevada."