Gambling vs. "leveraged" trading

[anntlevel]

Both trading and leverage trading can be compared to gambling. The less you know what you are doing and the more you are relying on luck on how you feel the market will go, the more of a gambler you are. The difference is, leverage trading is similar to gambling when you borrow money, so you can bet higher amounts. You can win more but you can lose faster as well.

Precisely, leverage trading compared to gambling all I can say is worst in gambling. There's no assurance in gambling but in trading maybe you have a chance. If I rate them in my own the lowered one is gambling, pure luck base on gambling but in trading, you have a chance by searching and make a study of what coin you trade for.
For me, these two things are very risky, so I will not engage of these of strategy in earning money.

In trading there's a guaranteed return especially when you know what you are doing. Regular trading is cannot be consider as gambling because you have the strategies every time you trade, and you study for it however people consider trading as gambling because many greedy people are still trading even they know nothing. Leveraged trading is quiet more risky and it can be consider as gambling because you are borrowing money just to have more profit which I think more greedy compare to the ordinary trading.

Trading is the most profitable source of income and many people are making more and more money from crypto trading. Gamblers are losing their money online and offline. They have no respect in society, besides trader has lot of respect in his community because of having money. By trading you can become the richest person of your community.

[maydna]

I don't think that leverage trading is the same as gambling. because we still need to analyze where is the trend wants to go and how good the market if we buy the coin. but in leverage trading, we can add power because we can get leverage to make money but we could also get lost if our buy does not match with the trends. so it is important for us to know where the price wants to go so we can make a profit in leverage trading.

[JL421]

It's not exactly like gambling, leverage trading is mostly for those people who know the market very well, i don't know if you remember but there was a trader once who had few bitcoins and started leverage trading in December. He converted those few bitcoin to some 80 bitcoins and he thought he knew everything about the market but in jan as price started falling he got frustrated and start leveraging more and finally in feb lost everything when the market crashed

[avikz]

Both trading and leverage trading can be compared to gambling. The less you know what you are doing and the more you are relying on luck on how you feel the market will go, the more of a gambler you are. The difference is, leverage trading is similar to gambling when you borrow money, so you can bet higher amounts. You can win more but you can lose faster as well.

Precisely, leverage trading compared to gambling all I can say is worst in gambling. There's no assurance in gambling but in trading maybe you have a chance. If I rate them in my own the lowered one is gambling, pure luck base on gambling but in trading, you have a chance by searching and make a study of what coin you trade for.
For me, these two things are very risky, so I will not engage of these of strategy in earning money.

In trading there's a guaranteed return especially when you know what you are doing. Regular trading is cannot be consider as gambling because you have the strategies every time you trade, and you study for it however people consider trading as gambling because many greedy people are still trading even they know nothing. Leveraged trading is quiet more risky and it can be consider as gambling because you are borrowing money just to have more profit which I think more greedy compare to the ordinary trading.

Trading is the most profitable source of income and many people are making more and more money from crypto trading. Gamblers are losing their money online and offline. They have no respect in society, besides trader has lot of respect in his community because of having money. By trading you can become the richest person of your community.

That's a very typical mentality you have portrayed. Just like how a common man with zero knowledge about gambling would think. I won't blame you because this is how a major portion of the society thinks about gambling and you are not someone with exceptional mental capability. So no wonder you would do that.

By characteristic, trading is also gambling. In gambling you bet on your luck and in trading you bet on your speculation and obviously luck. It's because of some people with typical mindset portrays gambling as negative in the society. A change in outlook towards gambling is obviously needed and I strongly condemn your views on gambling.   

[Raja_MBZ]

This thread motivated me to open an account @ bitmex to try crypto trading on leverage. Unfortunately, the USA is a "restricted" region? (It might be a state based restriction, rather than nation based)



What's a good exchange for leveraged trading, where I might have access?

The last time I tried trading with leverage on the stock market, I think the minimum account balance to do so was $2,000. One neglected advantage of crypto trading could be leverage with balances less than $2k. Generally higher potential profits are correlated with greater risk. Many financial and economic instabilities and recessions can be traced back to large investors gambling with toxic assets when financial bubbles pop.

"Regulation" prohibits people like me from having financial opportunities with leveraged crypto trading on bitmex. I know that people circumvent regulation via VPN/proxy/etc. But shouldn't these platforms operate on an equal opportunity basis?

From their terms of service:

By registering as a Member you represent and warrant:

i) that you are not a resident of the United States of America, Cuba, Crimea and Sevastopol, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, or any other jurisdiction where the services offered by BitMEX are restricted. If it is determined that you have given false representation as to your place of residence, BitMEX reserves the right to close your account immediately and liquidate any open positions at the prevailing market price.

At Bitmex, there's no minimum account balance required for leveraged trading. You're good to go even with a few satoshis. However, I must say that you're lucky for being in a restricted region. It ruined my savings of whole year in a blink of an eye.

I'm never going to open that website again.

[minime0105]

in my opinion, gambling is playing off-chance. Trading on the other hand is all insightful knowledge and confidence, therefore I'd go leveraged trading where at least you still have some limited control over your money

[leowonderful]

Additionally, there are tools you can use in trading to help you predict future pricing and patterns in the market (technical analysis), but in the end it is extremely debatable whether or not these tools help or work much, and trading is still luck-based, much like gambling. You can reduce risk in trading to minimize losses by reducing trade sizes, etc, and trading isn't exactly rigged against you the way regular gambling is with house edges, but trading and gambling are clearly related in some ways.

If we start talking about leveraged trading, though, we start to stray closer to true gambling. Leveraged trading is extremely risky and there's a reason why most people choose not to do it- though your gains are greater as a result of leverage, so do your losses, and then margin calls also come into play. In the past when I've tried trading, I never even looked to it or thought of it for these very reasons.

[Hydrogen]

From their terms of service:

By registering as a Member you represent and warrant:

i) that you are not a resident of the United States of America, Cuba, Crimea and Sevastopol, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, or any other jurisdiction where the services offered by BitMEX are restricted. If it is determined that you have given false representation as to your place of residence, BitMEX reserves the right to close your account immediately and liquidate any open positions at the prevailing market price.

At Bitmex, there's no minimum account balance required for leveraged trading. You're good to go even with a few satoshis. However, I must say that you're lucky for being in a restricted region. It ruined my savings of whole year in a blink of an eye.

I'm never going to open that website again.

Thx for the info. That clarifies things. I'll try to find another exchange which accepts US residents. If I trade I'll probably use a balance of $20 or less and focus on percentage gained/lost rather than overall bankroll. To get an idea of how profitable/unprofitable it is over the long term. Around 5 years ago, I tried trading on an exchange and only managed to profit around $12 per day. It wasn't much more profitable than HODL so I gave it up. Maybe things are different now.

If trading crypto with leverage was more widely available 5 years ago, I might've been able to turn my $12 per day gains into a decent sum. Sorry to hear about your losses. I lost around 8 bitcoins gambling when 1 btc was worth around $12 around 2011-2012. I know that feeling.

[adaseb]

This topic has been discussed pretty much for the last 20-30 years by people going and buying stocks or futures.

The answer is always the same. Its called gambling if you don't know what you are doing and just trading on greed and emotion.

I use Bitmex alot and I see day in and day out more or less the same situation. People deposit like $100 and get greedy and go 100x so they end up being whipped out usually within the hour and their account is cleared.

Even if the trade does work out they usually take profits way too early and their stop loss is pretty much being margin called.

[entrepmind23]

in my opinion, gambling is playing off-chance. Trading on the other hand is all insightful knowledge and confidence, therefore I'd go leveraged trading where at least you still have some limited control over your money

At least when leveraged trading, you have a basis of why you bought at that level and sell at that level even though there is still a risk that you will be margin called when price doesn't go where it is suppose to go. In gambling, more often than not you will depend on a chance that you will get lucky that what you bet on can win and it is a one time big time win and one time loss too but when you are trading, you still have a chance to hedge your position so that your losses will not be that big or may at least be break-even or have some profit.

Some people would choose gambling over leveraged trading though because some games in gambling are no-brainer while in trading, you need to do analysis that may be stressful for some people.

[Supercrypt]

Trading/leverage trading can be compared to gambling but depends on how you are doing your trading. If you start placing your trade without studying the market and not analyzing anything, but with a hope of "gaining" something then you are actually gambling cause you are hoping to make profit but you are totally uncertain about what is going to happen. But if you do your analysis properly chances are high that you have predicted the outcome thus this time you aren't gambling.

Yes, even outside margin trading, anyone who is doing anything without knowledge is actually gambling because there is no way such a person will be able to do it better than someone with knowledge. However, in the real gambling, there is nothing like knowledge which is what totally makes trading a whole lot different from gambling.

In a way, we can call trading an educated gambling in which you have a chance of doing far better if you are well learned and have a good strategy, and that is one thing you can never get from real life gambling in the casinos.

[el kaka22]

Recently I tried leveraged trading for the first time at Bitmex, and ended up in a loss. It seemed similar to a gamble, where you deposit, place a bet and either win (and double) or lose everything. In leveraged trading, if you deposit & place an order and it reaches your liquidation level, you lose everything.

Gambling can't be compared to regular trading, as in regular trading, you don't win much and don't lose much either. However, if you're trading with leverage, then that trading can be considered something similar to a gamble.

Well, that depends on how high the leverage you are placing is and how knowledgeable you are when it comes to trading. I have never liked leverage trading anyway because in the real sense, you are actually gambling and in this case it is even more of an educated gambling for those with knowledge than the real style of trading. In this case, you are either losing or you are winning and nothing like patience to hold as in the case of trading normally but in a way, with great knowledge, it is still better than normal gambling in a way.

[pokeronlinestatus]

From their terms of service:

By registering as a Member you represent and warrant:

i) that you are not a resident of the United States of America, Cuba, Crimea and Sevastopol, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, or any other jurisdiction where the services offered by BitMEX are restricted. If it is determined that you have given false representation as to your place of residence, BitMEX reserves the right to close your account immediately and liquidate any open positions at the prevailing market price.

At Bitmex, there's no minimum account balance required for leveraged trading. You're good to go even with a few satoshis. However, I must say that you're lucky for being in a restricted region. It ruined my savings of whole year in a blink of an eye.

I'm never going to open that website again.

Thx for the info. That clarifies things. I'll try to find another exchange which accepts US residents. If I trade I'll probably use a balance of $20 or less and focus on percentage gained/lost rather than overall bankroll. To get an idea of how profitable/unprofitable it is over the long term. Around 5 years ago, I tried trading on an exchange and only managed to profit around $12 per day. It wasn't much more profitable than HODL so I gave it up. Maybe things are different now.

If trading crypto with leverage was more widely available 5 years ago, I might've been able to turn my $12 per day gains into a decent sum. Sorry to hear about your losses. I lost around 8 bitcoins gambling when 1 btc was worth around $12 around 2011-2012. I know that feeling.

These two are different things. Gambling is a source of losing money and trading is a source of making money. Earn money from trading and lose them in gambling are the formula of addicted and regular gamblers and traders of cryptocurrency. If you have any care of your family you will never gamble and will only trade affectively to make more money.

[vintages]

I believe they both can be very dangerous in their own way because they are both risky for one to borrow to trade is a funny stupid act that is unbearable when thought of because no trader should borrow to tades because of the instability. Gambling on it own can be a good act if only one know how to be a master in his or her game, thos is another way it will be better.  

[beerlover]

Both trading and leverage trading can be compared to gambling. The less you know what you are doing and the more you are relying on luck on how you feel the market will go, the more of a gambler you are. The difference is, leverage trading is similar to gambling when you borrow money, so you can bet higher amounts. You can win more but you can lose faster as well.

Precisely, leverage trading compared to gambling all I can say is worst in gambling. There's no assurance in gambling but in trading maybe you have a chance. If I rate them in my own the lowered one is gambling, pure luck base on gambling but in trading, you have a chance by searching and make a study of what coin you trade for.
For me, these two things are very risky, so I will not engage of these of strategy in earning money.

I don’t know how can you compare gambling with trading and leveraged trading? Trading is far better than gambling because it is business and the source of making more and more money while gambling is the way of losing your earned money. It will take to into debts and you will never be able to pay those debts till the end of your life and finally you will suicide.

The good thing about trading is that you have all it takes to be a winner most of the time and even if you are losing, you are just losing small.

I understand a lot of people consider margin trading with gambling, but that depends on each individual and how they are going about it which indeed some people are actually gambling than trading anyway since they simply have no strategy and all they do is guess work, and that is not different but in the case where they are doing it professionally with great knowledge it is a lot more than just gambling.

[BillyBobZorton]

Recently I tried leveraged trading for the first time at Bitmex, and ended up in a loss. It seemed similar to a gamble, where you deposit, place a bet and either win (and double) or lose everything. In leveraged trading, if you deposit & place an order and it reaches your liquidation level, you lose everything.

Gambling can't be compared to regular trading, as in regular trading, you don't win much and don't lose much either. However, if you're trading with leverage, then that trading can be considered something similar to a gamble.

It depends. If you think that technical analysis and fundamental analysis are skills in which you can improve upon and therefore increase your percentage of accurate predictions, that would mean that you don't consider that gambling, but a job, so this wouldn't be the same as going into a casino and spinning a roulette. The fact that you are using leverage or not in your trading doesn't change that, you either consider TA and FA as skills or you just think trading is 100% luck.

Personally I think it's actually safer to use leverage in trading than most casino activities. Maybe, you can consider poker a proper skill, and also sports betting in which you can study the statistic and teams involved, other than that it's mostly luck out there.

[allycn]

I don't think you can compare them either. If I were to gamble I would stick to standard gambling, and I were to trade I would stick to standard trading. To be honest, leverage trading seems too complicated, and at least with gambling there is some fun / entertainment involved (at least for me).

[dmamigo]

I don't think you can compare them either. If I were to gamble I would stick to standard gambling, and I were to trade I would stick to standard trading. To be honest, leverage trading seems too complicated, and at least with gambling there is some fun / entertainment involved (at least for me).

Yes, comparing is kind of illogical, yaa both requires skills, like in Poker I believe skill set is highly required and in trading obviously without some skill you will kill yourself financially within few moments. But both are different personally for me, like I trade to earn and I gamble to have fun and enjoy the earning as well only if I have luck.

[checkmatesir]

This topic has been discussed pretty much for the last 20-30 years by people going and buying stocks or futures.

The answer is always the same. Its called gambling if you don't know what you are doing and just trading on greed and emotion.

I use Bitmex alot and I see day in and day out more or less the same situation. People deposit like $100 and get greedy and go 100x so they end up being whipped out usually within the hour and their account is cleared.

Even if the trade does work out they usually take profits way too early and their stop loss is pretty much being margin called.

I think for a good future crypto trading and for a worst future crypto gambling. Now you can understand these phenomena and can decide which one is better for a better life. But the problem is this that regular gamblers cannot quit gambling although they know the worst verdict of gambling but still they gamble and don’t think about their future.

[FrueGreads]

Well if you think about it, the principles and the skill for normal trading or leverage trading are probably the same. The strategy used, or the risk/award ratio is what puts them apart in my opinion. On normal trading you can just buy or sell, and even if the market goes against you, you can choose to keep it open i you really think things are going to change, and you will have the comfort in knowing that you wont lose more that you have already invested.

On leverage trading, not only the losses can happen much faster, you can't really leave a trade open, because you could end up losing even more than what you invested on that trade. The potential returns are of course much higher, but so is the risk. I don't think one is mo close to gambling than the other though. You just need different bankroll management rules in my opinion.