My understanding is that currently Bitcoin can be said to be a digital currency and can become a strong asset, the reason is because Bitcoin has offers such as limited supply and also decentralization.
Decentralization and non censorship are more important for Bitcoin because they help to create the value of Bitcoin. Only limited supply is not enough to make a high value and we can find many altcoins like Bitcoin forks and non Bitcoin forks with same total supplies like Bitcoin has and even less while these shitcoins have very low or no values.
If you talk about the safest label, of course you have to consider several relative things, even though Bitcoin is supported by a good and mature network structure, as well as global liquidity support.
As an investment asset, Bitcoin can be considered as safe one in many markets and in cryptocurrency market, it's the safest. However if people go beyond investment and shift towards trading or betting like what OP think about, it's no longer a safe option. Bitcoin itself is strong and safe for users and investors but with people who take risk, leverage and do wrong actions, Bitcoin can not save life of those people as well as their capital.