Bitcoin Forum

Sports … hedging?

If you want to bet that oil prices will go up, you can buy oil futures. In the U.S., oil futures are legal and popular and exchange-traded and regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and have been for a long time. You can use them for various purposes, but one purpose is just to make a bet on oil prices, which is generally called “speculation.”

If you want to bet that the Bucs will beat the Chiefs in the big football game, you can go to a casino or a sports book and make a bet. In the U.S., sports betting is popular, but its legality is more complicated. It is legal in some states but not others; it was illegal almost everywhere not that long ago; there is no simple national exchange to make sports bets, and in fact interstate sports gambling is illegal under federal law. If you are just making a bet on football scores, that is generally called “gambling.”

What is the difference between these two things? Well, traditionally, one big difference is that oil futures could be used to hedge real business risk. 1  You might use them for pure speculation, just to bet on oil prices, but an oil company might use them to lock in a selling price for its future oil production, or an airline might use them to lock in a purchase price for its future fuel consumption. This sort of real-business rationale meant that commodity futures were legal and accepted business tools even while regular gambling was illegal and immoral. And, sure, some people would use commodity futures just to speculate — to gamble — but those speculators were helpful participants in a broader, socially useful market; they made the market more liquid and more useful for real businesses that wanted to hedge real risks.

Over time, the CFTC allowed more and more futures contracts, and the rationale was less “this is a commodity that someone can deliver in the future” and more “this is a financial contract that can hedge a real business risk.” So futures on volatility and interest rates are not like oil futures, in the sense that you can’t load an interest rate on a tanker ship and deliver it to a customer, but they are like oil futures in the sense that interest rates and volatility are important risks for real businesses and those businesses might want to hedge them. So they are traded on exchanges and regulated by the CFTC, and if you want to bet on interest rates you can do that legally and transparently and as part of standard financial markets.

Meanwhile real normal businesses don’t have costs or revenues that fluctuate based on football scores. 2 So football betting is just gambling; there is no business purpose to it. Some states allow it and some don’t, but financial contracts on football scores are not traded on exchanges or allowed by the CFTC or part of standard financial markets.

Well, but, one kind of business has a real business need to hedge against football scores: sports books! If you are in the (legal in your state) business of taking bets from customers on football games, and all your customers want to bet on the Chiefs, you might want to hedge your risk by buying some financial contracts that pay off if the Chiefs win. Could you go to the CFTC and say “hey, I have a legitimate business purpose to hedge my real risk by buying football-score futures,” and convince them to allow trading of those futures?

No, absolutely not, that is way too cute, but nice idea, good effort. Here is a Wall Street Journal story about Eris Exchange LLC, a cryptocurrency exchange that tried to slip this one past the CFTC:

ErisX’s plan was to list three kinds of futures contracts, with payouts based on the outcomes of individual NFL games, the point spreads in those games, and what bettors call the over/under—bets based on the total number of points scored in a game. …

ErisX’s contracts wouldn’t have been open to small individual investors. ErisX said they were designed to fill the hedging needs of businesses such as sportsbook operators that let bettors wager on games, stadium owners and food and beverage vendors.

For instance, a sportsbook licensed to operate in one state could have used the ErisX futures contracts to address a common problem where its local customers tend to bet on the home team, resulting in an imbalance in the firm’s books. Potentially, stadium operators could have used the futures to hedge against the risk of reduced revenue in case their local team didn’t make the playoffs, ErisX said.

But ErisX’s proposal faced a legal hurdle: Federal law gives the CFTC the authority to prohibit event contracts linked to gaming. The law doesn’t define gaming, leaving it up to the CFTC to determine whether the contracts’ underlying activity fits the classification. Historically, the regulator has been wary of proposals that blur the line between betting and financial derivatives trading.

Yeah … I … I just think that a contract that lets a sports book lay off its sports gambling risk in a sports gambling derivatives market is pretty obviously sports gambling? Here are the skeptical questions that the CFTC sent to ErisX about this plan (“Do any of these contracts involve, relate to, or reference gaming,” etc.), and the Journal notes that ErisX “withdrew its proposal” as “the CFTC had been poised to reject ErisX’s proposal on the grounds that it was contrary to the public interest.” I don’t know if that’s right as an intuitive matter — maybe sports betting is great and in the public interest? — but as a matter of CFTC rules it is obviously right. The CFTC does not allow futures contracts that are “gaming.” It is clever to argue “no no no, this is not a gaming contract, this is a contract to hedge gaming risk,” and I applaud the ingenuity, but of course it didn’t work.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-24/nfl-futures-betting-you-can-t-trade-on-pro-football-odds

An interesting question was posed by the author here.

Question: "Market investors and hedge funds bet the price of an asset will increase or decrease by buying or shorting stocks. Gamblers bet one sports team will defeat another by placing bets. Is there a real difference between these two things. Should one be illegalized while the other is not."

I suspect some who have tried their hand at both gambling and crypto exchange trading might identify with these remarks. High risk correlated with high reward ventures such as sports gambling and market investment might both qualify as gambling. There may be many cultural and societal similarities between equity traders and sports gamblers as well. With big data and algorithm based approaches being the most successful innovations of recent times, in both areas.

No, absolutely not, that is way too cute, but nice idea, good effort. Here is a Wall Street Journal story about Eris Exchange LLC, a cryptocurrency exchange that tried to slip this one past the CFTC:

If you want to bet that oil prices will go up, you can buy oil futures. In the U.S., oil futures are legal and popular and exchange-traded and regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and have been for a long time. You can use them for various purposes, but one purpose is just to make a bet on oil prices, which is generally called “speculation.”

Question: "Market investors and hedge funds bet the price of an asset will increase or decrease by buying or shorting stocks. Gamblers bet one sports team will defeat another by placing bets. Is there a real difference between these two things. Should one be illegalized while the other is not."

Thats complicated...many peoples think that investment and gambling are the same and i think the idea is not totally right...in the wining situation for example when you make a bet at 2 ods your asset will be doubled once the bet get settled but  investment can have some other situations...in the losing case bettors will dont have any chance to recover their money but investors maybe will recover and make huge profits by holding their investment

In the broad sense of the word, both are gambling. There's not much difference between the two. It's just that there are various interpretations of the word, various contexts on which gambling could be construed differently.

Gambling could refer to placing bets on a game of chance or on a sports team as much as it could refer to taking a risk making a bid order in a stock market or on a crypto exchange platform. However, most of the time gambling in the sense of the former is more on merely having fun and taking blind chances while the latter is oftentimes understood as a serious undertaking which involves a lot of informed analysis.

At the end of the day, I don't think one should be made illegal while the other legal. But both should be highly regulated.

-snip

Question: "Market investors and hedge funds bet the price of an asset will increase or decrease by buying or shorting stocks. Gamblers bet one sports team will defeat another by placing bets. Is there a real difference between these two things. Should one be illegalized while the other is not."

I suspect some who have tried their hand at both gambling and crypto exchange trading might identify with these remarks. High risk correlated with high reward ventures such as sports gambling and market investment might both qualify as gambling. There may be many cultural and societal similarities between equity traders and sports gamblers as well. With big data and algorithm based approaches being the most successful innovations of recent times, in both areas.

...

An interesting question was posed by the author here.

Question: "Market investors and hedge funds bet the price of an asset will increase or decrease by buying or shorting stocks. Gamblers bet one sports team will defeat another by placing bets. Is there a real difference between these two things. Should one be illegalized while the other is not."

...

I couldn't see any differences in their essences, though. Investment in the market and sports gambling are both high risk, high reward activities, except that the former is favored legally by the government since they also peruse this to make money, plus the bulk of the tax money that they are getting are from companies that invests in a specific market. I have nothing against traders and investors in well-ironed suit-and-tie combo, it's just that I believe that they are, in essence, the same, and they only differ in the methodology and the environment to which they achieve their end goal.

Question: "Market investors and hedge funds bet the price of an asset will increase or decrease by buying or shorting stocks. Gamblers bet one sports team will defeat another by placing bets. Is there a real difference between these two things. Should one be illegalized while the other is not."

I suspect some who have tried their hand at both gambling and crypto exchange trading might identify with these remarks. High risk correlated with high reward ventures such as sports gambling and market investment might both qualify as gambling. There may be many cultural and societal similarities between equity traders and sports gamblers as well. With big data and algorithm based approaches being the most successful innovations of recent times, in both areas.

There are difference and similarity, both are risky you can lose everything if you do not know how to analyze and you are not knowledgeable on how things work, the motivation that drives you to participate in both market is profit and rewards, if you are a market investor coming in the sports betting you will find all the elements of investing in the market in the sports gambling, you can't just place your bet and hope it will win, there should be analysis and compelling reasons, why you come out with that decision, that's also the same for sports bettors coming in the investment market.

Both should be legalized because they can be regulated and they can be taxed and both work on trust if investors and bettors see that they are regulated they easily participate .

On a broader perspective both are different. Betting on oil prices is different from betting on a football match IMO. On the longer term, if more and more people depend on oil products rather than moving over to electrical automobiles we would be noticing a sharp increase in prices but on the other hand if more and more global population move towards electric products, we would be seeing a decrease in huge demand and hence oil prices wouldn't rise up so high in the upcoming decades. So I would consider this betting lies with an important factor of how technology is rising, for example if more people are interested towards electric cars we could never be sure future oil prices wouldn't be so higher.

But the outcome of a football match can be partially predicted based on the past performances of the team and the key players present in the current match. Also there are possibilities that players could be bribed and they may not be playing well on a few particular days. Hence on a broader sense, the outcome of the match is depended on the player and we can never predict completely if they might be playing really good or not. Nowadays stocks has become equivalent to crypto i.e there are so many manipulative pumps and dumps like how Gamestop happened where a powerful person like Elon and a community like Reddit could play with the people's money. On a conclusion note both crypto, stock market can be very well considered as gambling along with betting on a sports game.

I have tried both and let me tell you that market investment or trading like they call it is way more dangerous than gambling.A gambling event for example sport game takes time like 90 minute a match and gives you time to reflect while the market changes every minute and if you become addicted you can cause yourself a lot more damage than gambling and this in a very short time.

I have tried both and let me tell you that market investment or trading like they call it is way more dangerous than gambling.A gambling event for example sport game takes time like 90 minute a match and gives you time to reflect while the market changes every minute and if you become addicted you can cause yourself a lot more damage than gambling and this in a very short time.

You can hold your investments in the long term and you can pull it out anytime you feel like while in gambling overtime you are losing more money even if you are winning because the wins of the present is to offset the losses from the past and in gambling losses tend to incur faster than wins so I don't think that investment is more dangerous than gambling, maybe if you are on a pyramiding scheme then maybe your investment is in danger.

HArd fact but true , We may think that winning is on ours today but we don't tend to remember that our wins today is the losses we have in the past.
I Know also that we will never win in gambling if we don't know how to invest while in gambling.

HArd fact but true , We may think that winning is on ours today but we don't tend to remember that our wins today is the losses we have in the past.
I Know also that we will never win in gambling if we don't know how to invest while in gambling.

So we are never winning because we still carried the losses from the past unless we can hit the jackpot, which I do not think will be easy to do. Many people are trying to playing gambling with money, but that only gives your money without winning.

But if in the investment, you will see the profit come to you in the future, although the price now is down, the chance for the price to increase will still be bigger. So you can choose what you want to do ;D

I recently read that there is a similarity between sports gambling and market investment like trading. If you consider that market investors are making bets, it's already gambling with the definition of "bet" itself. Speculators on the market that try to predict where the value will go are gambling.

Although both might possess some level of similarity but in the real sence sports gambling is purely a bet without any analysed technique.

~snip

An interesting question was posed by the author here.

Question: "Market investors and hedge funds bet the price of an asset will increase or decrease by buying or shorting stocks. Gamblers bet one sports team will defeat another by placing bets. Is there a real difference between these two things. Should one be illegalized while the other is not."

I suspect some who have tried their hand at both gambling and crypto exchange trading might identify with these remarks. High risk correlated with high reward ventures such as sports gambling and market investment might both qualify as gambling. There may be many cultural and societal similarities between equity traders and sports gamblers as well. With big data and algorithm based approaches being the most successful innovations of recent times, in both areas.

Despite some similarities, these activities are radically different. Gambling is just a game of luck. Hedge funds don't play with luck - they buy and sell liquidity, arbitrage interest rates and risks, etc. This is an ordinary business that has nothing to do with gambling.
By the way, a traditional businessman like a baker of buns can also suffer from random events, but we are not saying that his activities are similar to gambling.

Hitting a jackpot comes only One in a Billion chance mate meaning this cannot be for many times.

Meaning totality is we are loser and the banker will always Win.

Well it is not constantly gaining because In the former YoloDice in which i followed to investors , the first one lost while the other one gains because of the Huge increase in Bitcoin but if not?sure he will lose as well.

For me personally the "fine" difference between market investment and gambling is knowledge about the evaluation of factors that determine the outcome. E.G.: You can never predict the number in roulette, but you can predict some makret environment regarding preferences of potential buyers. In this case you can lower the risk and get a state of a +EV decision.

Question: "Market investors and hedge funds bet the price of an asset will increase or decrease by buying or shorting stocks. Gamblers bet one sports team will defeat another by placing bets. Is there a real difference between these two things. Should one be illegalized while the other is not."

In the sense of other games which are pure luck, I think the difference starts there but it's also debatable that there are investors that are only choosing coins through luck and don't mind if that coin will take time for them to prosper.

This has been one of the debates about trading and gambling for which both bear risk and can be said that there's really no difference at all. But in this case, since it's been specified that it's sports gambling, just as trading it requires analysis and case study for you to get closer to the probability of winning.

In the sense of other games which are pure luck, I think the difference starts there but it's also debatable that there are investors that are only choosing coins through luck and don't mind if that coin will take time for them to prosper.

Investment and Gambling are but two sides of the same coin. Both can rake in money, and both could leave you penniless as well if you're not thinking straight. But what I believe is the biggest difference between the two is their purpose. Market Investment is made to make money initially, and Gambling, tho some may argue, is primarily there for entertainment. It's up to you to think about the worth and weigh of the two.

Agree so in the end, no need to really differentiate the risks between market investment and the usual gambling investment.

Other people can professionally handle trading but not in gambling while on the other hand, there are people who can handle gambling but not trading.

But to get profits, it all relies upon our own strategy on both.

The problem with gambling is that you either win or lose within a time frame as the game gets over but if you are investing in an asset you can just wait for months and even years because you believe in the project. Imagine someone buying bitcoins at 10k then having to see the price drop down to 3k but if they kept faith now they can get huge value but with gambling you either lose or win and there is no chance for you to delay or wait for things to change in your favor.

Gambling should only be meant for fun as everyone says and that is because no one can actually win in the long term, no matter what strategies you make you are always going to lose. Investment is made because you believe in a project and just want to buy some shares, a completely different scenario.

Totally agree!
In both cases, people should draw their own line which shouldn't be crossed. Investing constantly and just for the sake of doing so is pure gambling and the opposite.
Even in gambling, if you play smart and look for value, it could be considered an investment. 

So we are never winning because we still carried the losses from the past unless we can hit the jackpot, which I do not think will be easy to do. Many people are trying to playing gambling with money, but that only gives your money without winning.

But if in the investment, you will see the profit come to you in the future, although the price now is down, the chance for the price to increase will still be bigger. So you can choose what you want to do ;D

First, I personally think both of them should stay legal. I mean what is wrong with a game that you can risk to lose money to win more... But I also think same with many. I think both should be regulated.
I think biggest reason between gambling and market investment is risk/gain value. Gambling is far more hard to be successful.

Investing in futures contracts and gambling have common characteristics and for this they can bring us profit or loss, Because they both rely heavily on betting!!

Investing in futures contracts and gambling have common characteristics and for this they can bring us profit or loss, Because they both rely heavily on betting!!

Do you mean trading in futures? If you do not use analysis before you trade in futures, it can be gambling because you predict if the trend will go down or up.
But if you use analysis to trade and know where the trend will go, I think that is not gambling.
But I think trading and gambling have a thin line between the two, and the differences are about the skills.
Maybe there will be a debate about this because trading without skills is related to gambling. After all, we only guess where the trend will move.

So we are never winning because we still carried the losses from the past unless we can hit the jackpot, which I do not think will be easy to do. Many people are trying to playing gambling with money, but that only gives your money without winning.

But if in the investment, you will see the profit come to you in the future, although the price now is down, the chance for the price to increase will still be bigger. So you can choose what you want to do ;D

Question: "Market investors and hedge funds bet the price of an asset will increase or decrease by buying or shorting stocks. Gamblers bet one sports team will defeat another by placing bets. Is there a real difference between these two things. Should one be illegalized while the other is not."

I suspect some who have tried their hand at both gambling and crypto exchange trading might identify with these remarks. High risk correlated with high reward ventures such as sports gambling and market investment might both qualify as gambling. There may be many cultural and societal similarities between equity traders and sports gamblers as well. With big data and algorithm based approaches being the most successful innovations of recent times, in both areas.

Thats complicated...many peoples think that investment and gambling are the same and i think the idea is not totally right...in the wining situation for example when you make a bet at 2 ods your asset will be doubled once the bet get settled but  investment can have some other situations...in the losing case bettors will dont have any chance to recover their money but investors maybe will recover and make huge profits by holding their investment

Gambling and marketing investment are two sides of the same coin, With Gambling, you're gambling for your present, with investment, you're risking your future. Then again, one thing that also defines them is how they are generally seen by the people. Market Investment is seen by many as a way to earn money, whilst gambling, though some may argue as well, is generally seen as a form of entertainment. Both offer hefty profits at the risk of something lost, Gambling could cause devastating losses depending on the person, same goes with Market Investment, although it doesn't happen that much.

Investment and gambling are two worlds separated by a fine line of skill.

Investment deals with the speculation of a stock/cryptocurrency in which its price may increase in the near future. On the other hand, gambling generally involves more of a short-term situation where you bet your resources hoping that the odds may be in your favour. While luck may seem to be involved in both, the technical analysis is more present in investing.

Thats complicated...many peoples think that investment and gambling are the same and i think the idea is not totally right...in the wining situation for example when you make a bet at 2 ods your asset will be doubled once the bet get settled but  investment can have some other situations...

in the losing case bettors will dont have any chance to recover their money but investors maybe will recover and make huge profits by holding their investment

You are right,
In fact, investing in trading depends on employing a set of skills that help us close trades without incurring losses. The same thing happens when we bet on sports matches, if we don't have a strategy to work on, we face a big loss!

Investing for me is almost the same as gambling, in short, investing is a sort of gambling but the more worst is gambling when it comes to risk and it is based on luck, so whatever strategy you will apply, most likely you end up keep losing the more time you will spend on it.

Let us not complicate those things, both of them are very risky and I agree above, they are the same coin but different faces, coin mean they are risky but have a different styles on how to risk.

An interesting question was posed by the author here.

Question: "Market investors and hedge funds bet the price of an asset will increase or decrease by buying or shorting stocks. Gamblers bet one sports team will defeat another by placing bets. Is there a real difference between these two things. Should one be illegalized while the other is not."

In the broad sense of the word, both are gambling. There's not much difference between the two. It's just that there are various interpretations of the word, various contexts on which gambling could be construed differently.

Gambling could refer to placing bets on a game of chance or on a sports team as much as it could refer to taking a risk making a bid order in a stock market or on a crypto exchange platform. However, most of the time gambling in the sense of the former is more on merely having fun and taking blind chances while the latter is oftentimes understood as a serious undertaking which involves a lot of informed analysis.

At the end of the day, I don't think one should be made illegal while the other legal. But both should be highly regulated.

Thinking that hedge funds don't play with luck is naive in my opinion. 2008 has shown the world how the big finance companies are gambling with money and take extraordinary risks in order to gain profits. The difference between hedge funds and gamblers are just, that the first are able to manipulate markets because of their market power.

It is all one big absurdity.  The more things regulated the better for the authorities and the worse for the rest. That is what it is all about: uncertainty and doubt. It is not the free market that decides, but someone behind a desk

Regulation, to a certain extent, is necessary. Imagine a completely regulation-free environment. That is one bigger absurdity. You wouldn't want it for sure.

Of course, regulation has to be moderated, kept within reasonable bounds, feedback-driven, and so forth. But when it comes to uncertainty and doubt, those are severe in a market which has no regulation whatsoever.

Freedom is sweet. But try absolute freedom. It kills.

When the intention of doing sports betting is to make more then both hedging funds and sportbook are similar in nature and moreover yes its just a pure gambling. But we are living in a society consider one as sin and other one as smartest move from a person.

Investment and gambling are two worlds separated by a fine line of skill.

Investment deals with the speculation of a stock/cryptocurrency in which its price may increase in the near future. On the other hand, gambling generally involves more of a short-term situation where you bet your resources hoping that the odds may be in your favour. While luck may seem to be involved in both, the technical analysis is more present in investing.

They are just two different thing but very similar. investment is a means to earn from your keeping why the so called gambling doesn't but wen appropriately done and win then you will earn reward. Investment isn't gambling and gambling won't be like investment, except when the operators tend to be illegal about the two. 

What is the definition of absolute freedom according to you? Everything is possible but not everything is beneficial. Everyone has a conscience and the right attitude to be good. When you are born you know immediately what is good and what is not unless someone distorts this image. You don't need any regulations for that. It is one thing to punish evil and another to regulate it.

It seems to me that you are confusing investment with trading, traders are the ones that speculate with the price of an asset on the short term, investors do not really speculate, they look at the fundamentals of an asset and then they try to project to the future whether or not that asset is going to be more valuable in the future and if they think that is the case then they put their money in that asset, this is precisely what is happening now with institutional investors coming to bitcoin at the moment

In the most simple terms, absolute freedom means you can do anything you want, without limit, and without any constraint. That sounds sweet but dreadful.

Forget about beneficial; that's subjective. Forget about right attitude and conscience. Forget about good and evil. Those are meaningless concepts in a place where every single person is absolutely free.

I'm not so sure about you being born knowing what is good and what is not. What I'm sure of is that the rest of the human beings were born tabula rasa.

My friend, in a human society, regulations are not exclusive for evil things. Everything is regulated.

It seems to me that you are confusing investment with trading, traders are the ones that speculate with the price of an asset on the short term, investors do not really speculate, they look at the fundamentals of an asset and then they try to project to the future whether or not that asset is going to be more valuable in the future and if they think that is the case then they put their money in that asset, this is precisely what is happening now with institutional investors coming to bitcoin at the moment

People who say that investing can use multiplication are wrong. only the bookie can benefit in gambling and the users when they are able to apply this will surely lose by fighting their emotions. So what is clear is that there is a fundamental difference between gambling and investing. people who are addicted to gambling find it difficult to get out of this vicious circle. because surely they think how to return their lost capital

In the broad sense of the word, both are gambling. There's not much difference between the two. It's just that there are various interpretations of the word, various contexts on which gambling could be construed differently.

Gambling could refer to placing bets on a game of chance or on a sports team as much as it could refer to taking a risk making a bid order in a stock market or on a crypto exchange platform. However, most of the time gambling in the sense of the former is more on merely having fun and taking blind chances while the latter is oftentimes understood as a serious undertaking which involves a lot of informed analysis.

At the end of the day, I don't think one should be made illegal while the other legal. But both should be highly regulated.

only the bookie can benefit in gambling and the users when they are able to apply this will surely lose by fighting their emotions. So what is clear is that there is a fundamental difference between gambling and investing. people who are addicted to gambling find it difficult to get out of this vicious circle. because surely they think how to return their lost capital

Besides, it happens one in a billion chance, which will come to one in a billion people who have big luck at that moment. That shows us playing gambling will not benefit most people who want to make money from gambling.

I think some investors in YoloDice really profit from the investment in that site, but they do not tell who they are, so we do not have references for them except people who share their story in this forum.

In my opinion, investing in altcoins can be compared to gambling. 

Let's say a bullish round begins in the alt market.  There are a huge number of different alternative cryptocurrencies. 

How to determine which of the coins will increase significantly in value?  The investor does not know this. 

He must guess, counting on a win, and this is essentially gambling.  Gambling is based on a mathematical system.  Investing in shitcoin is not based on a mathematical system that artificially limits the player's ability to win. 

However, there are so many shitcoins, their price is so unpredictable that the investor actually becomes a gambler. 

He is forced to engage in single combat with chaos and luck in order to make a profit.

That is why gambling is a really good business because no matter what day it is as long as there is a steady influx of gamblers, you will still profit because the house always wins. By the way, what is the fundamental difference that you are talking about?

I agree that getting out of your addiction is difficult, I have been there and let me tell you that the only way to stop the cycle is to do it yourself with or without the external help of intervention, you are the only one who can end the cycle.

Profit is not guaranteed,,, you can always fall victim to pure dumb luck, which is why crypto gambling is still a bit risky as you cannot have insurance to cover the unlikely scenario where lucky gamblers can wipe you out.

I know this well as a crypto investor in casino bankrolls. If lucky gamblers win big, you can wipe out years of house edge profit!

That is why gambling is a really good business because no matter what day it is as long as there is a steady influx of gamblers, you will still profit because the house always wins. By the way, what is the fundamental difference that you are talking about?
~

They are just two different thing but very similar. investment is a means to earn from your keeping why the so called gambling doesn't but wen appropriately done and win then you will earn reward. Investment isn't gambling and gambling won't be like investment, except when the operators tend to be illegal about the two. 

Investing can be a a problem to when we only just go with it without studying it, its like taking a gambling since we dont5do research but it can lessen when we do our research and what to buy and hold. It is less riskier and we have fully control on what decision we will do unlike in gambling that the House who controls it.

Investing can be a a problem to when we only just go with it without studying it, its like taking a gambling since we dont5do research but it can lessen when we do our research and what to buy and hold. It is less riskier and we have fully control on what decision we will do unlike in gambling that the House who controls it.

They're the same, both are involved in speculation, just that the time frame that the both of them look at is different.

Investing can be a a problem to when we only just go with it without studying it, its like taking a gambling since we dont5do research but it can lessen when we do our research and what to buy and hold. It is less riskier and we have fully control on what decision we will do unlike in gambling that the House who controls it.

...
In the most simple terms, absolute freedom means you can do anything you want, without limit, and without any constraint. That sounds sweet but dreadful.

Forget about beneficial; that's subjective. Forget about right attitude and conscience. Forget about good and evil. Those are meaningless concepts in a place where every single person is absolutely free.

I'm not so sure about you being born knowing what is good and what is not. What I'm sure of is that the rest of the human beings were born tabula rasa.

My friend, in a human society, regulations are not exclusive for evil things. Everything is regulated.

We will have to agree to disagree here, because I do not see investing as speculation at all, a person investing in a business is doing so because that person really believes in the business in question and it is not really interested in selling their assets anytime soon or ever, after all if you are invested in a good business then why sell? This is why bitcoin holders always urge people to keep holding their coins no matter what as they have no plans of selling soon and maybe ever.

We will have to agree to disagree here, because I do not see investing as speculation at all, a person investing in a business is doing so because that person really believes in the business in question and it is not really interested in selling their assets anytime soon or ever, after all if you are invested in a good business then why sell? This is why bitcoin holders always urge people to keep holding their coins no matter what as they have no plans of selling soon and maybe ever.

Investing can be a a problem to when we only just go with it without studying it, its like taking a gambling since we dont5do research but it can lessen when we do our research and what to buy and hold. It is less riskier and we have fully control on what decision we will do unlike in gambling that the House who controls it.

An investment into bitcoin will be such that will help investors secure their funds than gambling. There are distinct differences between these two, gambling is purely lucky base while investment solely depends on ability to manage the available funds. In gambling i have lost severally but in investment has always be mindful of my funds management.

In the first part, I completely agree - if the business remains relevant and satisfies the needs of people, then there is no point in selling a stake in it as it makes a profit. As for the holding of crypto, this phenomenon also has a negative side - because of this, practical application falls, which sooner or later will lead to a fall in the price of the asset itself.

It is true the price of bitcoin can go down but just as it demonstrated during this year even if you invested at a bad price just as many people did during 2017 or 2018 there is still a lot of potential to make profits as long as you keep holding your coins, I know it is not easy as those people would have had in theory to keep holding their coins for 3 years just to breakeven but even then they will still be making 200% profits if they did so, and that is if we assume they bought at the worst possible time which shows to me why investing is not really gambling even if some people mistakenly believe it.

If they can use the investment section in the gambling site, they will have a chance to make more money than playing gambling.

But that will depend on how they will use their money on the gambling site because many people use the money to gamble to search for fun. We can choose what we need to do, and we can also use gambling for fun and use the investment that is available on that site to earn additional profit.

So the investment will help us earn the reward in the future, and if we can get the right investment, such as investing in bitcoin, we can profit in the future. But that will not happen in gambling because we can lose all of the money without we can try to recover. Maybe if we can use the money that we spend for gambling to invest in something like bitcoin and other coins, we can a nice return in the future. But make sure you learn before you invest so you will not make a wrong decision.

In my opinion, there is a significant difference between gambling and investing. 

Gambling is a zero-sum game.  One player wins, the other loses.  Moreover, as a rule, the organizer of the gambling game has a competitive advantage in the game. 

Investing is always a winning strategy.  Investment is the investor's bet on progress.  The modern financial system is inflationary.  In monetary terms, the capitalization of all global companies is constantly growing. 

The price of one individual share may fall, but stock indices are showing constant growth. 

Under these conditions, a patient investor is guaranteed to make a profit.

Not that making more, investing to a bankroll needs time to make money and it's not that what you think as easy as what you say. It requires time for you to make with that feature.

Fun, investment, making money with gambling, yes, all of those things depends on how the gambler will make his money and put it into purpose.

In my opinion, there is a significant difference between gambling and investing. 

Gambling is a zero-sum game.  One player wins, the other loses.  Moreover, as a rule, the organizer of the gambling game has a competitive advantage in the game. 

Investing is always a winning strategy.  Investment is the investor's bet on progress.  The modern financial system is inflationary.  In monetary terms, the capitalization of all global companies is constantly growing. 

The price of one individual share may fall, but stock indices are showing constant growth. 

Under these conditions, a patient investor is guaranteed to make a profit.

In the broad sense of the word, both are gambling. There's not much difference between the two. It's just that there are various interpretations of the word, various contexts on which gambling could be construed differently.

Gambling could refer to placing bets on a game of chance or on a sports team as much as it could refer to taking a risk making a bid order in a stock market or on a crypto exchange platform. However, most of the time gambling in the sense of the former is more on merely having fun and taking blind chances while the latter is oftentimes understood as a serious undertaking which involves a lot of informed analysis.

At the end of the day, I don't think one should be made illegal while the other legal. But both should be highly regulated.

Yes, until today, any investment in bitcoin has been profitable (if you had the will and the money to wait out the 85% drawdown), but there is no guarantee that it will be so in the future. If new projects begin to perform the function that was originally assigned to bitcoin (fast and cheap payments on the Internet) and gain wide recognition, then they will become more competitive with bitcoin and it will be difficult for it to maintain its position.

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There are many investments that are also a zero sum game - such as binary options in which for one party to win, the other has to loose necessarily, so that is not a good criteria to discriminate. Investing is not always a wining strategy - there is plenty of money and value to be lost and it is indeed lost everyday since there are companies that go to zero all over. In fact, most do go to zero in the first few years.

Lastly, the organisers of the market usually have built-in advantages, although I admit that small investors do have other advantages that they can use, such as being able to invest in illiquid and small assets.

indeed, inveting is not always guaranteed to make great returns over the longer run if one makes bad decisions
though if managing risk and being responsible the possiblity of a positive outcome is much higher than with gambling.

it's also much harder to find an edge while gambling than on investing.

As long as we can get the right investment, we can make a profit in the future. But we need to know how to manage the risk or select the investment to get a positive result. The fine line between investment and gambling can confuse people because if they do not research more about both things, they can gamble with their money which does not give them the profit.

Maybe the benefit of gambling is we can feel relax and have fun but if we play longer, that can make us lose money. At the same time, the investment will give us more return than gambling.

Gambling is really should for the sake of entertainment but people do really go on the wrong path on having wrong views and perception that this one could really make them rich
but it doesnt really work that way and the time they do lost up money then thats the time they would make up some realizations that this isnt something can be compared with investment
or making themselves rich because gambling does have its own purpose which is really filling out that pleasure seeking of you than on making investment which is totally
inappropriate to have in mind.Always seek out for specific investment if you are really eager to deal with long term.

As long as we can get the right investment, we can make a profit in the future. But we need to know how to manage the risk or select the investment to get a positive result. The fine line between investment and gambling can confuse people because if they do not research more about both things, they can gamble with their money which does not give them the profit.

Maybe the benefit of gambling is we can feel relax and have fun but if we play longer, that can make us lose money. At the same time, the investment will give us more return than gambling.

the thing is: there's no fine line, gambling and investing are really different things and should be treated differently.

If a gambler has an investor mindset he can have chances to suceed.
but an investor with a gambler's mindset is faded to loose a lot.

I have tried both and let me tell you that market investment or trading like they call it is way more dangerous than gambling.A gambling event for example sport game takes time like 90 minute a match and gives you time to reflect while the market changes every minute and if you become addicted you can cause yourself a lot more damage than gambling and this in a very short time.

the thing is: there's no fine line, gambling and investing are really different things and should be treated differently.

If a gambler has an investor mindset he can have chances to suceed.
but an investor with a gambler's mindset is faded to loose a lot.

the thing is: there's no fine line, gambling and investing are really different things and should be treated differently.

If a gambler has an investor mindset he can have chances to suceed.
but an investor with a gambler's mindset is faded to loose a lot.

indeed, inveting is not always guaranteed to make great returns over the longer run if one makes bad decisions
though if managing risk and being responsible the possiblity of a positive outcome is much higher than with gambling.

it's also much harder to find an edge while gambling than on investing.

How can a gambler have chances to suceed? Even with an investor's mindset it is not possible. You cant win against roulette with this kind of mindset, because it is mathematical impossible. Please explain your "idea" more further.

It is hard to see a gambler has an investor mindset as they want to make money. But not all of them will do like that because I am still sure that some of them will not just think about winning from the gambling games. If they can have an open mind about the investment thing, they will search for how they can have the investment while playing gambling.

That's true, but based on the high rollers of different gambling sites myself have asked the same question. Why these People aren't prioritising investment. We can understand it, only when we get into gambling hard. The instant return is the major factor, which we can't expect with investment. However investing from the profit of gambling is always a better perspective.

Things are totally different and cant really be collaborated in between gambling and investment.Both are separated on the concept of earning money neither sustainable or not for long term.

One is definitely for entertainment and one is totally for future income or profit and of course setting up those things are entirely different.Therefore, the way on dealing up with
it I depending on how a certain person would see it.

It should be separated depending into your own motive.

How can a gambler have chances to suceed? Even with an investor's mindset it is not possible. You cant win against roulette with this kind of mindset, because it is mathematical impossible. Please explain your "idea" more further.

It is hard to see a gambler has an investor mindset as they want to make money. But not all of them will do like that because I am still sure that some of them will not just think about winning from the gambling games. If they can have an open mind about the investment thing, they will search for how they can have the investment while playing gambling.

I strongly agree with you mate, well I guess it is because the more people who used to engaged themselves more on gambing I've meet in life was those people who I know has no interest in market investment or even in business. But there are also those people I know who gamble but  also a business minded. They are relating their hobby like gambling to generate a profit and those people are great in their life.

I strongly agree with you mate, well I guess it is because the more people who used to engaged themselves more on gambing I've meet in life was those people who I know has no interest in market investment or even in business. But there are also those people I know who gamble but  also a business minded. They are relating their hobby like gambling to generate a profit and those people are great in their life.

That's true, but based on the high rollers of different gambling sites myself have asked the same question. Why these People aren't prioritising investment. We can understand it, only when we get into gambling hard. The instant return is the major factor, which we can't expect with investment. However investing from the profit of gambling is always a better perspective.

We have no way to know what is behind the high rollers that we see at the casino, there maybe a lot of reasons why they behave this way, many high rollers have too much bitcoin already and most likely they are just gambling with a small portion of their capital, so while for us they are making huge bets this is nothing for them

Exactly, it's hard to drive reasonable conclusions from simply high bets. I used to assume that these people must be very rich to afford losing thousands of dollars in a matter of minutes, but there's also another side of the coin. Sometimes poor people, who aren't gambling addicts, but simply are up to the neck in debts, see gambling as a quick opportunity to win and settle their debts. Recently there was a post here from a person like that. At first, they decided to make an investment, but that took too long, so they switched to gambling, which resulted in even more debts...

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This is a very interesting topic for me as I often wonder about the same.

I think the concepts have similarities but also are different in some ways. Why? Well, there are some high-risk investing practices and volatile stocks. In this case, I agree that investing is pretty much identical as betting or gambling. You give your money without having any idea what the outcome will be. Plus, as some of you said, the stock market is often an unfair place to be, and people with small budget can easily lose everything if they can't afford to wait out periods when the stock prices go down.

On the other hand, I'd say there are the stable stocks like Microsoft for example that generally move in a positive direction and give dividends. So, you get there in order to slowly grow your investment and possibly save money for retirement or whatever. I wouldn't place these investments in the same basket as betting and gambling. Sure, there's always the chance that something will go wrong. But still, I think these chances are small and if you read the news etc. you can probably react in time to cash in your profits.

So, my overall opinion is divided in half. If you buy new stocks and see what happens or invest in volatile stocks like Tesla that can easily grow by 50% but also drop by 60%, you are gambling in a way.

Also, to me the main difference is what money you use for investing. If you invest your retirement fund in stable investment opportunities hoping to slowly grow it, then I wouldn't say you're gambling. If you get some $5,000 you are ready to lose and just want to see what will happen by investing them in some new stock that can prove awesome or terrible, then you're gambling. You can easily decide to bet those $5,000 on a football match or place them on red on roulette and see what happens. If you are ready to lose the money, you are always gambling.

I don't know if this makes sense to you.  ;D

It makes sense and we see this in the market as well, the majority of the money is invested in bitcoin and if you invest in it with the intention to hold for the long term then you are not really gambling, but if someone invest in the 997th coin in the market thinking of becoming rich then that person is gambling no matter what they say, the confusion is also exacerbated because they both borrow terms from each other and this confuses people about both being the same when in fact they could not be more different.

It makes sense and we see this in the market as well, the majority of the money is invested in bitcoin and if you invest in it with the intention to hold for the long term then you are not really gambling, but if someone invest in the 997th coin in the market thinking of becoming rich then that person is gambling no matter what they say, the confusion is also exacerbated because they both borrow terms from each other and this confuses people about both being the same when in fact they could not be more different.

Well, I would qualify that by saying that if the person investing in the 997th coin but having great knowledge about it and the market, if perhaps he has inside information, then he is not gambling, he is investing. But well, you get the idea of what you mean. The difference is that in gambling there is a mathematical certainty that is against you, in the long term, while in the investment world that certainty does not exist.

but if someone invest in the 997th coin in the market thinking of becoming rich then that person is gambling no matter what they say,

That's a good comparison and representation of gambling and investing. There is this belief that when we invest, we're also gambling but the example that you've given for investing to those low ranking coins is totally a gamble.

The description of it differentiates from the people discussing it.

Sports gamblers and market investors share a very thin line of difference but for the both there is a big difference. For betting we stake without certainty although most of the times we check out of past performances and also the records a particular team has kept over a period of time. But we forget that the other team we are negleting might have had series of trainings ready to breakthrough from the weakpoints of the stronger team.

When it comes to market investments we have different strategies that directs the trader on direction of the trending market. Investing in the financial markets require analysis and if not properly analyzed could be considered as gambling. It's like our general day-to-day business venture. You have to understand a particular business before you trade it

Profit is not guaranteed,,, you can always fall victim to pure dumb luck, which is why crypto gambling is still a bit risky as you cannot have insurance to cover the unlikely scenario where lucky gamblers can wipe you out.

I know this well as a crypto investor in casino bankrolls. If lucky gamblers win big, you can wipe out years of house edge profit!

That's a good comparison and representation of gambling and investing. There is this belief that when we invest, we're also gambling but the example that you've given for investing to those low ranking coins is totally a gamble.

The description of it differentiates from the people discussing it.

they may have similarities in nature as it seems we are also gambling when it comes to market investments. but the processes involved are very different. if you are not a person who knows the financial market, can you make it thru the day on this venture? don't think so. same with sports gambling, if you are really not into sports, would be a very hard task for you to place bets as you have no idea what you are doing.
so what i am saying here - these 2 are quite similar in nature but if you know any of these 2 by heart, the gambling side will be reduced in its effect.

The difference between the 997th coin in the market and the top ones is probably the features they offer and the originality of each one. While the top coins are innovative and have their own technology, the 997th is just a copy of another coins. By investing in the top ones you aren't gambling, but investing, because you know their features will lead them up on long run, but once you exclude the features, innovation, creativity and originality of the coin, nothing is left. That is the case of the coins on the bottom of the crypto market list. So when investors put their money on these cheap (or priceless) coins, they aren't investing anymore, but gambling instead, because there isn't any logical reason they can use to explain why this specific coin is going to return them profit on long run.

So I think we can say we are investing when our actions are well based and make sense from a technical perspective, but when we put our money in something that isn't possible to explain why that is a good investment in a reasonable way, it's because that isn't an investment at all. Besides the coin example you gave, I could also mention ponzi, high yield *investment* programs.

That's a good comparison and representation of gambling and investing. There is this belief that when we invest, we're also gambling but the example that you've given for investing to those low ranking coins is totally a gamble.

The description of it differentiates from the people discussing it.

Everything will depend n our own understanding, some already have beliefs that is too hard to analyzed since they wanted to believe that way. Investing can be a gamble in terms of risk that we don’t know when we will be able to be in profit but not in-terms of gambling that we stake our money for the sake that others will lose for us to win. In investing everyone can lose or win without opponents

Everything will depend n our own understanding, some already have beliefs that is too hard to analyzed since they wanted to believe that way. Investing can be a gamble in terms of risk that we don’t know when we will be able to be in profit but not in-terms of gambling that we stake our money for the sake that others will lose for us to win. In investing everyone can lose or win without opponents

I think that many times people confuse the concept of gambling and risk, it is true that no matter what kind of investing strategy you use there is going to be an inherent risk but this is not the same as gambling, in gambling you cannot really choose the odds, the casino offers a series of games with different odds and you can just take those odds if you want to play a particular game, but when it comes to investing you can choose moments to invest in which your risk is as low as possible and it is important to distinguish this difference.

That's a good comparison and representation of gambling and investing. There is this belief that when we invest, we're also gambling but the example that you've given for investing to those low ranking coins is totally a gamble.

The description of it differentiates from the people discussing it.

a key point we can learn from that is that studying and improving our skills will help better decision-making, be it in investing or in the way we gamble, studying is not only reading and learning about the world but also learning about ourselves and developing better emotion control, awareness.

don't you think?

Its overall!

Becoming better player or gambler would always vary on being good in different factors on different angles not only limited on the capability or skills but also into emotion handling.

You would really become better if you do able to make yourself good into these fields and dont find any hardship whether you do decide on what to engage or whats not.
It all matters with experience in general sense. Being aware on different conditions and acting appropriate that would correlate to it.