Is trading just a form of gambling?

[zimmah]

trading is like poker, in the short term it's pure gambling, in the long term if you know what you're doing, there is a +ev to be made

yeah, i agree.

if you know what you're doing, it's a bigger % of success so you should get profitable, even if your profit varies from day to day and might some days be negative.

with gambling you'll usually be in the negatives, unless you get a lucky day, but it has nothing to do with skill, unlike poker and trading.

[Whosdaddy]

A small group, maybe 10% make genuine profits with genuine skill. The other 90% lose, and they lose money to the 10%. Trading is a zero sum game, it's not possible for everyone to be a winner.

From where did you get these figures? I don't see 90% losing while trading as mostly all traders sell their coins above the market rate and hence even if the price goes above 15%, they get back what they invested.

Gambling also requires skill but the risk is more where people lose almost their entire bank roll and it's mainly a luck based game.

[techgeek]

trading is like poker, in the short term it's pure gambling, in the long term if you know what you're doing, there is a +ev to be made

yeah, i agree.

if you know what you're doing, it's a bigger % of success so you should get profitable, even if your profit varies from day to day and might some days be negative.

with gambling you'll usually be in the negatives, unless you get a lucky day, but it has nothing to do with skill, unlike poker and trading.

Its still a guessing in my view, but hey whatever you see fit. lol.

I mean the only times I would agree for trading to have a bigger chance of in someones direction is if there is something technical like the halving situation.

[afbitcoins]

At this time I see it like this. Yes it is a form of gambling. BUT with discipline you can have better odds than the house. But what normally happens is emotions take control and you lose

[afbitcoins]

Or maybe its like entropy and you can't beat it except in statistically unlikely fortuitous events  

[RealPhotoshoper]

trading is like poker, in the short term it's pure gambling, in the long term if you know what you're doing, there is a +ev to be made

yeah, i agree.

if you know what you're doing, it's a bigger % of success so you should get profitable, even if your profit varies from day to day and might some days be negative.

with gambling you'll usually be in the negatives, unless you get a lucky day, but it has nothing to do with skill, unlike poker and trading.

Its still a guessing in my view, but hey whatever you see fit. lol.

I mean the only times I would agree for trading to have a bigger chance of in someones direction is if there is something technical like the halving situation.

If you think everytime we are guessing it means we are gambling you are wrong.
Trading are needed a knowledge and analysis skills and sometimes needed a guessing too.
If we do guessing continuously I think you can call it as a gambling but if guessing occasionally, I don't think so.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Methinks OP has two very separate questions.

I think a lot of folks who trade on the cryptocurrency exchanges have no clue what they're doing.  How could they?  You can't analyze these coins like they're stocks--businesses with earnings and so forth.  You have very incomplete knowledge.  So no, I don't think they know exactly what they're doing.

Is it gambling?  Absolutely.  Some people believe in these coins, but I think most are like me and are not attached to any of them and are just looking to make money.  It's totally gambling.  But I find it more satisfying than going to a casino and handjobbing a slot machine.

[RyNinDaCleM]

I had this talk just a few days ago in a private chat.
Many people think trading == gambling. I like to think it's a little more calculated than that.
Experience plays a big role here. In 2011 I was "trading" but completely on gut instincts. I did pretty well considering, but that streak would likely have ended badly, eventually. That can be construed as gambling. I will not argue that.
What we do now is more like science in that we form a hypothesis (through our brand of TA/EW) and the trade is the experiment to test the hypothesis. Not by any means would I call TA an exact science, but more a practice like doctors do. We can figure out what should be happening based on some symptoms (indicators/price action), but sometimes things are out of place (like precise location of innards in people). So it's never exactly the same twice.

I also do not think it's gambling because we have a different type of risk. In Vegas, you slap a $100 bill on red, and black has it, that is completely gone. You buy .2 BTC and price drops, we have the ability to exit and preserve capital. Gambling is all or nothing with every play. Trading can be limited if done right.

It is true that most traders are not profitable. This comes back to the experience mentioned in the first paragraph. If you read investopedia about RSI once, this does not constitute you being a trader because you will not sufficiently learn how it acts or why it moves like it does compared to price action. The consensus for most things in life is that 10,000 hours of practice, learning, hands-on training is required to get proficient at something.

[log2exp]

Just to put this here: http://goo.gl/OKQGNb

Eventually, it's about how much exchanges get the profit from traders, house always wins.

[pooya87]

when you say "gambling" it means something that you don't know the outcome of, something that you have no control and can't predict it.

but when you say "trading" it means you can predict/speculate the outcome so you somehow know what is going to happen. also there is all these technical analysis and all that stuff for a reason. you use all of these to have an idea about what is about to happen

[bitlancr]

You can consider it as gambling and I must say that I think its a sort of gambling because you need luck for it.
And the fact is also that you are taking a risk.

[techgeek]

trading is like poker, in the short term it's pure gambling, in the long term if you know what you're doing, there is a +ev to be made

yeah, i agree.

if you know what you're doing, it's a bigger % of success so you should get profitable, even if your profit varies from day to day and might some days be negative.

with gambling you'll usually be in the negatives, unless you get a lucky day, but it has nothing to do with skill, unlike poker and trading.

Its still a guessing in my view, but hey whatever you see fit. lol.

I mean the only times I would agree for trading to have a bigger chance of in someones direction is if there is something technical like the halving situation.

If you think everytime we are guessing it means we are gambling you are wrong.
Trading are needed a knowledge and analysis skills and sometimes needed a guessing too.
If we do guessing continuously I think you can call it as a gambling but if guessing occasionally, I don't think so.

Wait so you know people made money off a TA and speculating on the # of buy orders coming in?

Last time I checked despite whatever trade setup you have, take a few enough hits from a bad trade and you wont trade again lol.

[martinacar]

I think it can be considered as gambling but its not really gambling on the other hand, I think its for a part is but for the other part not at all because it has a lot of other functions.

[Herbert2020]

I think it can be considered as gambling but its not really gambling on the other hand, I think its for a part is but for the other part not at all because it has a lot of other functions.

many people are doing it like gambling but it is the wrong way of trading. and them using it the wrong way doesn't mean trading is gambling! it means you should not invest without knowing about the future of your investment, if you are buying something (bitcoin or altcoin) and just hoping it goes up that would be gambling but if you buy them at a price that is good and when you think they can go up based on your analysis it means you are trading.

[jakelyson]

Do traders know what the fuck they are doing and tend to profit, or are they in reality just gambling? Sorry for my ignorance.

Only if you do not know what you are doing and just follow your gut-feel to decide whether to buy or to sell, to short or to long. That is the risky and can be considered as a gamble. But if you know what you are doing, can read graphs and trends technically and follows bitcoin news regularly, then you are in for profit.

[prtty2gal2]

Every business that has a risk involved is a form of gambling but trading is not the same. While trading, we can monitor our losses and profit which is not possible in gambling whether we play dice games or sports betting. We have no option to withdraw our money which we have invested unlike trading as it's totally our choice.