Quote from BSAM:
I don't need to read a book to understand that when I take a trade, it is a gamble. That is, I might win, or I might lose. I do understand, very well what gambling is.
I believe in all those definitions.
Which ones do you choose to believe in?
When you enter your trades Monday, there's very definitely a "chance" that you could win....or lose.
I choose to believe definitions #1 and #2, because they are most consistent with both my personal belief and the two other dictionaries I double checked it against here at home. They clearly state that the results need to be dictated by chance -- and markets are governed by supply and demand, not chance. I already have previous posts explaining my thoughts on the definition of chance so I won't bother repeating it here.
Your connotation of gambling is inconsistent with almost any book or publication ever written on the subject. Personally, it seems to me that you're using the word "gambling" synonymously with the word "uncertain."
If I walked into any Vegas casino and grabbed any pit boss, dealer, or casino regular, or any person who has ever either written a book on this subject or taught it at a University, and told them that we're going to play a game of dice.... That I was going to roll a single die over and over again and that everytime I rolled a 1, they were going to pay me $1, and everytime I rolled any number other than 1, I was going to pay them $1.... you'd be hard pressed to find ANYONE who would consider that gambling, since on each roll they would have 5 ways to win and only 1 way to lose. Its a mathematical
FACT, that if we played long enough, that they would make money -- lots of money --
GUARANTEED. The only way they wouldn't be GUARANTEED to make money would be if we didn't play the game long enough for the laws of averages to be accurately represented (meaning our sample size was too small) -- and even then there is an entire school of thought on this subject that would still not consider that gambling since on any single roll, whether you won or not, you would have had 5 times as many ways to win as you would have had to lose.
But, its a free country, and you're more than welcome to allow the word "gambling" to mean anything you want... for all I care you could use it to describe a car, a unicorn, or exercise -- or just about anything. But as far as this thread goes, you should understand that it means something completely different to anybody who has ever read or studied statistics, odds, and probabilities.
Bottom line... if you read that dice scenario that I just described, and think that its gambling to get paid even money on any number that comes up that isn't a 1... even though a 1 could be rolled 1, 5, or 20 times in a row, then you have a definition of gambling that's different than what most experts think of as gambling... and there isn't any point in trying to change your mind.
