Do You Think Trading is Gambling?

Do You Think Trading is Gambling?

  • Yes

    Votes: 140 44.7%

  • No

    Votes: 173 55.3%
  • Total voters
    313
Quote from JSSPMK:

Apples & oranges. Your question was whether TRADING is gambling, not 1 random trade. You can trade profitably with pretty low win rate anyway. Just because some trades end up as losses it doesn't make the whole line of events consisting of wins & losses a gambling activity. Not in my book :)
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Being profitable or not has nothing to do with it!

I can't believe how so many so called "elite" traders are blind to the facts!

If you push a stone up a hill, and then let go, what do you think will happen!

Why would a trader not want to admit to himself/herself that trading is gambling?

1. Insecure
2. Not able to face facts
3. Not able to make a logical deduction
4. Not able to confront reality
5. Not able to understand and reach the higher levels of professional gambling, and all that goes with it!
 
Quote from ivanbaj:

I am confused. To gamble you need two sides, the gambler and the house. Both sides are involved but only one is gambling. The side without the edge is taking a chance. The house is also taking a chance but as long as there is guarantee of a "long run" the house will be OK and one will not consider that the house is gambling. The gambler having negative expectancy will loose in long run. The only chance the gambler has is to take a shot and if he wins to run for the hills and never try again.
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The house will always win because the house plays the odds with no breaks in between.

All trades start off losing due to bid/ask spread and comms.

When a trade is making money, the trader then starts to contemplate on how much more can be got.

The trade turned out to be a winner, but the trader has now gone and reduced his odds dramatically by "pondering” on what might happen next!

Some traders are smart and take money quickly when the price stops moving - others wait to see if it will reach that magic number, level, or create that perfect pattern like a beautiful butterfly flying thru the air, or the 49 steps!

Now, all are gambling, but who is the smart gambler??????
 
Quote from nyustudent:

What a joke -- I've been monitoring these forums for a while now since I first found this site from a google search back in November. For a while, I thought there were people on this board who knew what they were talking about, but now that I've read through this thread I know that isn't the case.

Being a student at NYU, and being in New York, a lot of students here are very interested in the markets and this a subject that comes up a lot in classes. Last year I took a statistical theory course and a decision theory course, and this semester I'm taking a general equilibrium theory course, and this question has come up on more than one occasion in all three courses during group discussions. I can tell you that no Professor I have ever had has ever taken the position that trading is gambling. All of them have said that at best, trading has several similarities to gambling -- but nothing more. There was even an entire chapter in one of my old text books that touched reasonably well on this subject, and it layed out very clearly the differences between the two.

So for all of you on this thread who have been harassed by the so-called experts who think trading is gambling, stay strong, don't be swayed by uneducated individuals who are more interested in picking fights than learning the truth, and take some comfort in the fact that there are a lot of very educated professors with PhD's who teach at NYU who would not only completely agree with you, but would scoff at their opinions and would write them off as nothing more than lay opinions from people who don't understand the nuances of higher level thinking -- not to mention mathematics and statistics
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Academic heads would not know one end of a chart from another!

Here is one bit of advice for you when you are listening to your prodigies - they all lack the one thing in life that every person needs in order to make it big - actually, I will make this a valuable lesson and let you guess what it is?
 
Quote from JSSPMK:

You are twisting words now. It's simple, in trading it is possible to eliminate risk of a loss, in gambling games it's impossible to achieve.
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What a silly statement!

Eliminate risk of a loss - is that not also known as "fools gold" :)

You should have said; if the trader knows how to gamble correctly he will win more than he loses, and that makes him a smart trader, aka, a professional gambler.

Don't listen to these big hedge fund traders that work in big offices and piss other peoples money against the wall - they are they real morons, and have really showed this last 1.5 years how big a bunch of dumb ass idiots they really are!
 
Quote from Jachyra:

BURNNNNNN!!!!!

Way to go kid that was awesome! If you can see through their lies and bull you'll do just fine in the markets.
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I doubt it very much, and do you want to know the real reason why!
 
Quote from Pekelo:

Just because trading classifies as gambling that doesn't mean one can not be skillfull or can not make a living out of it.

After all, there are pro pokerplayers too. The whole trick is to bend the probabilities in your favour (aka having an edge) and trade only when the opportunity arise.

Now there are certain kind of gambling where you can not increase the probabilities of your winning unless you play more, like lottery. On the other hand if you know a lot about horses or sport teams (just like stocks or TA) you can increase the odds in your favour...
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As one poster here would say,

You Sir, know what it is you speak about.
 
Quote from nysestocks:

All I will say is, what did you expect :D
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Well if Don Bright is a moron (as you suggested), then I will quite happily join his ranks.

1. Trading is not officially accepted to be gambling;
2. Majority voted in favour of 'not gambling'
3. Trading is not mentioned anywhere as a gambling activity;
4. Don Bright said it ain't :p;
5. Analogy does not mean 'the same as';
6. Unless you count cards (casinos will love you if you do) you will eventually lose all your capital when gambling, not so in trading;

Now, your turn sport.
 
Quote from nysestocks:

Being profitable or not has nothing to do with it!

I can't believe how so many so called "elite" traders are blind to the facts!

If you push a stone up a hill, and then let go, what do you think will happen!

Why would a trader not want to admit to himself/herself that trading is gambling?

1. Insecure
2. Not able to face facts
3. Not able to make a logical deduction
4. Not able to confront reality
5. Not able to understand and reach the higher levels of professional gambling, and all that goes with it!
More...

Ok, at first I thought you were just rude, misinformed, and didn't know what you were talking about until I realized that you were also the original poster that started this thread. Now I think I agree with the handful of previous posters who figured out that you are in here just trying to stir up trouble or play a prank. I would echo their sentiment... if you're so secure in your position AND are so completely set in your convictions AND are completely unwilling to even consider the opinions and arguments of others WHY did you even start this thread and open up a poll in the first place?

Also, if you are so experienced as a trader AND know so much about it AND have been doing it for so long then why did you only register on this site in December of 2008? Have you traded all these years but only just recently heard of elitetrader? I think not. Either this isn't the first screen name you've registered OR you're not all you claim to be.

You need not answer since no matter what you're NOT going to give an honest answer, but rather, the answer that is the most inflamatory and stirs up the most trouble. But from now on you and all of your other fake aliases that you've posted under in this thread, to make it look like others actually agree with your ridiculous assertions, are going on my ignore list. I'm sure others will do the same.
 
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