A few key points distinguishing traders from gamblers

[Cookdata]

I was looking through the weekly Tradingview education and I came across one that was really interesting. It discussed what separates a trader from a gambler.
Unfortunately, most people confuse trading with gambling, When they trade(gamble) and lose money, they blame the market or blame what causes the incompetence and justify it with poor excuses.
It is not easy to be a professional trader, but practice makes you confident in what you do for a job. This is not a guaranteed or comprehensive trading strategy, but the few points are excellent for anyone to be a trader.

Source: https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/TRrwICB7-Traders-vs-Gamblers-Know-the-main-differences/

1) As a trader, one’s aim is to focus on the next 100 trades instead of the next 10. Long-term success, profitability, and consistency are two of the main things traders should target. However, a gambler’s wish and desire is to make quick money.

2) A successful trader/investor has a backtested trading plan that he sticks to and optimizes along the way, adapting to changing market conditions. On the other hand, gamblers like to trade based off what other people think and tweet, or by simply opening a random Buy/Sell position and hoping it plays out successfully.

3) Profitable traders always diversify their portfolio and risk no more than 1-2% per trade. On the contrary, gamblers go “full margin mode” on a single trade without setting a Stop Loss and end up blowing their accounts and blaming the markets.

4) Chasing markets and rushing the process is not what real traders do. Instead, they follow their plan and wait for the price to play out and match their entry criteria before executing. Nonetheless, gamblers like to overtrade, open positions based on nothing, make biased decisions.

5) When enduring a loss or two (or three), traders neither get emotional nor try to revenge the markets. They know that if they obey risk management principles and open high risk-to-reward positions, they will cover all their previous losses and get back to making profits. Gamblers, on the other hand, get angry and start attempting to revenge the market by making foolish decisions and entering many illogical trades.

6) Last but not least, if you want to be successful and profitable in this field, you have to treat trading as a business and take things seriously. Those that think markets are a playground or a casino machine will never succeed in this space.

Source: https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/TRrwICB7-Traders-vs-Gamblers-Know-the-main-differences/

[Fatunad]

I was looking through the weekly Tradingview education and I came across one that was really interesting. It discussed what separates a trader from a gambler.
Unfortunately, most people confuse trading with gambling, When they trade(gamble) and lose money, they blame the market or blame what causes the incompetence and justify it with poor excuses.
It is not easy to be a professional trader, but practice makes you confident in what you do for a job. This is not a guaranteed or comprehensive trading strategy, but the few points are excellent for anyone to be a trader.

Its not easy on where those noobs been thinking in the first place and even myself do have this kind of belief that it could be handled and learn too easily or in short period but once
you do face up the reality then you would really be having that kind of realizations that it wasnt never been easy on the first place.The most common behavior you would have initially
is to be like a gambler on which you are impulsive plus having no risk management or care that much on your finances until you do lost money.
Once you do realize that you arent doing something tactical or analysis then you would be finding you are simply doing gambling in your trades.

[OcTradism]

Traders have different types, amateur and professional.

Amateur traders are similar to gamblers but even so there are two types of amateur traders. If they use own money to trade, no leverage, they are less likely gamblers because if their trade positions fail with original plans, they can switch to be holders. If they use leverage, borrow money to trade, they are actually gamblers. They are gambling with the market, with the people who give their loans, with levarage, collateral liquidation.

Professional traders are more disciplined with their trades, with cutloss, with leverage, and they instantly exit their positions even with draw or small lose for their position.

[GreatArkansas]

To summarize, Gambling is more likely on luck, while Trading, you can't rely on luck here.
I believe trading is one of the difficult jobs to make money since there is money involved here, you may lose them.
On the other hand, gambling is for me is like a game of luck, anyone can play with it and the risk here is much higher compare to trading.

[michellee]

Most traders, especially new traders, follow other people's signals because they do not know how to analyze the market, making them confused and determining the good time to enter the market. That will be a gamble for them since they only follow other signals without analyzing by themselves.

But the other new traders know that is not right for them and decide to learn more about trading and spend their time searching for the next lesson. The difference is how they want to learn to analyze the market and just follow the other signal without analyzing it themselves.

Once they can do that, I believe they will slowly become a professional trader.

[jhonjhon]

I was looking through the weekly Tradingview education and I came across one that was really interesting. It discussed what separates a trader from a gambler.
Unfortunately, most people confuse trading with gambling, When they trade(gamble) and lose money, they blame the market or blame what causes the incompetence and justify it with poor excuses.
It is not easy to be a professional trader, but practice makes you confident in what you do for a job. This is not a guaranteed or comprehensive trading strategy, but the few points are excellent for anyone to be a trader.

Source: https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/TRrwICB7-Traders-vs-Gamblers-Know-the-main-differences/

1) As a trader, one’s aim is to focus on the next 100 trades instead of the next 10. Long-term success, profitability, and consistency are two of the main things traders should target. However, a gambler’s wish and desire is to make quick money.

2) A successful trader/investor has a backtested trading plan that he sticks to and optimizes along the way, adapting to changing market conditions. On the other hand, gamblers like to trade based off what other people think and tweet, or by simply opening a random Buy/Sell position and hoping it plays out successfully.

3) Profitable traders always diversify their portfolio and risk no more than 1-2% per trade. On the contrary, gamblers go “full margin mode” on a single trade without setting a Stop Loss and end up blowing their accounts and blaming the markets.

4) Chasing markets and rushing the process is not what real traders do. Instead, they follow their plan and wait for the price to play out and match their entry criteria before executing. Nonetheless, gamblers like to overtrade, open positions based on nothing, make biased decisions.

5) When enduring a loss or two (or three), traders neither get emotional nor try to revenge the markets. They know that if they obey risk management principles and open high risk-to-reward positions, they will cover all their previous losses and get back to making profits. Gamblers, on the other hand, get angry and start attempting to revenge the market by making foolish decisions and entering many illogical trades.

6) Last but not least, if you want to be successful and profitable in this field, you have to treat trading as a business and take things seriously. Those that think markets are a playground or a casino machine will never succeed in this space.

Source: https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/TRrwICB7-Traders-vs-Gamblers-Know-the-main-differences/

Some people  think they are traders until they realize too late, that they are gamblers.The first way to distinguish trader from gambler are their expectations.Gamblers think that they can make easy money quickly without thinking the risk.Whereas traders,they know that making money in the market is not a get rich quick method.Traders know that to get rich,you have to do it consistently and sustainably.

[Viscore]

Traders in a long run always make money. And there income and profit are sustainable.They may not get money everyday. They also make losses but they still follow their plan and strategy consistently. Opposite to gamblers, they can make a lot of money on lucky trading but its is not sustainable and consistent.Gamblers only depend on their luck.

Unfortunately, most people confuse trading with gambling, When they trade(gamble) and lose money, they blame the market

Stock market is not gambling, we have made it gambling. No one can be blame except yourself.

[worle1bm]

To summarize, Gambling is more likely on luck, while Trading, you can't rely on luck here.
I believe trading is one of the difficult jobs to make money since there is money involved here, you may lose them.
On the other hand, gambling is for me is like a game of luck, anyone can play with it and the risk here is much higher compare to trading.

Exactly gambling is entirely different from trading and investment but some try to mix it up which is entirely wrong.You can gamble with even $1 but you can't trade with it and as you said it's more luck based as outcomes are totally unpredictable but on trading you apply your strategies and market analysis to trade with open mind.Gambling is for fun while the later one is to make profits and it could be short term or long term.They are very different in every aspect and we need to know this before making false claim.

[mardaed]

I agree with all have been said by the others. In trading, the decisions and move being taken are somewhat calculated, are based on analyses, and are goal-oriented. Whereas, gambling majorly involves of moves that are based on luck, gut feeling and calling of the moment. From such characteristics, you may determine whether a person is gambler or trader.

[Vaculin]

I agree with all have been said by the others. In trading, the decisions and move being taken are somewhat calculated, are based on analyses, and are goal-oriented. Whereas, gambling majorly involves of moves that are based on luck, gut feeling and calling of the moment. From such characteristics, you may determine whether a person is gambler or trader.

Yes. Gamblers are totally dependent on luck as they don't exert extra efforts or use strategies that will make them win. However, traders does not depend on pure luck. You win your trades because you have skills and strategies that have been proven to work on you. And in such cases, there is more consistency to win in trading compared to gambling because in trading, you do good analysis to come up with almost precise predictions, but in gambling, you are not predicting but more on guessing.

[Wexnident]

Simply saying gambling is reliant on luck and trading is reliant on educated guesses would be more than enough imo. It's like a well-prepared hiker vs a person who just decided to hike all of a sudden. Traders are people who risk their money while having the confidence that their risk would bring about some form of success, while gamblers are people who solely risk money. I'd probably not agree with the emotion part though, traders still sometimes get greedy and let their emotions get to them after all.

[Kelvinid]

I don't know how it makes it hard to distinguish a trader from gambling as obviously the two is different and even we know what we really are be doing.

Trader- often to make a trade, buy and sell, and make a profit from the market. Requires knowledge and skills in order to make a profit.
Gambler - that is clearly betting. It requires knowledge and skills as well but what makes this being bold is that we need luck in order to win.

[TinaK]

True, investing and gambling are two completely different things, but they both include some level of risk and decision-making, notably the danger of losing money in the future. Diversification is one of the most important distinctions between investing and gambling.

Investing allows you to diversify your risk across all asset classes, whereas gamblers put all of their money into a single pot with no risk management in place. With this, you can easily distinguish a trader from a gambler.

[Ararbermas]

A trader that without risk management and don't have a good plan or specific strategy on every trade, probably that's what we called gambling.. But if you knew what you're doing and very comfortable with your strategies perhaps no worries about it especially if you can manage risk because at the end of the day you still can bring your account into green. Just imagine if you can make 10 trades everyday and you have 1 or 2 mistakes it still a win right?   So let's just find a good strategy and learn more especially when it comes price action to prevent doing mistakes.  Always remember that no one can skip the process to become a good trader so be patient and keep learning.

[palle11]

I see the two tables as the difference between professional trader and unprofessional trader, which is the table you called gambler because there are terms you used there that are not for gambling like leverage. I know that an addict over gambles if that's what you mean by leverage. Well of course a professional trader is mindful of some many things including entry and exit, stop loss and take profit, probability of win to lose etc. The obvious difference however is the chart which guides the trader on the probable next move but this is absent in gambling.

[Findingnemo]

Trading is kind of gambling too, not every professional trader is doing long term trades there are also lot of professional doing day trading but no need to mess trading cryptocurrencies and rolling dice on a casino because both are completely different and existing here for different reasons.

[wildan88]

I agree with the lists, gamblers doesn't use any basis since most of the gamblers including me do believe in chances no matter how big or small it is chance is still a chance but that's not the case in technical analysis, once the market shows a signal and confirmation that it is going up or down there is no chance that it will go the other way.

I'm talking about casino by the way but there is also have some similarity like in game analysis in sports betting is like technical analysis that using history to make new prediction.

[slaman29]

Couldn't agree more, and been brought up countless times in this forum about how most "traders" are actually gamblers. And the truth is, most traders fail at one or two of those points, so start out doing the right things, but after a while become impatient, or greedy, and then switch into gambler mode. Could be interesting maybe to see if any gambler eventually turned trader!

Emotional point I think tough to overcome though, and that doesn't necessarily turn you into a gambler. Loads of wall street regular traders get emotional in black swan events.

[Johnyz]

This is really important to know, and as a trader you should know this so you can aware if you are doing gambling or you are trading in the market correctly. There's a lot of impulsive traders who are just riding with the hype without having their own analysis and that's it, that's gambling and its too risky to trade without having any knowledge about the market. A trader will always based his move on his own analysis at his own timeline, this is not just a simple buy and sell.

[Zilon]

Even professional traders also count their losses although the difference between them and gamblers is that professional traders can actually account for their losses and are patient enough to wait for a good setup before diving into to the market. But no one was born a professional trader becoming a pro is an account for consistent practice as @ op mentioned. I will say a professional trader is a product of improved loss trades that are now an advantage on their path when making their analysis