hello
in gambling you uses only your luck and decides what to do at the same time .
But when u calls that you are doing business .
the basic rule for business is first you have to serch and study the market that what is hapning in the market a demand and suply rule and decides to invest your money in the right business just like buildung a factory of that product which has more demand.
and about risk .
risk is always there just like .Demand is high but if your product didnt meet the standards it will fail and you r in loose.
forex is not gambling it ia called business in it you studies and then makes a trade.
thanks
You see I didnât follow my own advice today.
I suspected the gbp numbers would not be earth shattering and that cable would fall.
I expected the fall due to the recent action on eur/gbp which I also figured was headed back to 86.00 (long story).
Anyhow, cut to the chase, I took up a short at 5600 with a 30pip stop, tp open ( figuring maybe 80 pips) BEFORE data release.
I was gambling, yes gambling on a fall, good trading would have been to wait for the numbers, see the fake up and then short.
I didnât do this deliberately, it cost me money, but the first thing I thought of when I hit the sell button was this thread, and I knew I was gambling - not nice.
As much as I completely understand & appreciate your train of thought with this example, youâre looking at this whole subject from the typical angle that most folks on here approach it.
Unfortunately (& not for the first time) youâve totally missed the point, as do 99.5% of most regulars on here.
Itâs not the fact you decided to place a bet in the manner youâve described on that instrument that denotes the gambling tag.
The very fact you [U]placed a bet at all[/U] (regardless of the quality or quantity of pre-entry analysis conducted) registers it as a gamble.
Price could have âfaked upâ as you call it, preceded to fall (where you then executed your short bet), dropped 10-20 pips, stalled & either slowly or very quickly ratcheted back up through your entry & continued on regardless.
The point of all this being, when you clicked that short bet order on your platform [B][U]the outcome of that order was/is totally unknown.[/U][/B]
Iâm sorry to rain on your parade but that transaction (as do all transactions) constitutes a gamble, however well or poorly prepared.
I cannot for the life of me understand the psychological reluctance & refusal to accept exactly what type of endeavor you guys are really involved in.
It truly is very bizarre indeed.
[QUOTE=âdancat;522327â]
As much as I completely understand & appreciate your train of thought with this example, youâre looking at this whole subject from the typical angle that most folks on here approach it.
Unfortunately (& not for the first time) youâve totally missed the point, as do 99.5% of most regulars on here.
Itâs not the fact you decided to place a bet in the manner youâve described on that instrument that denotes the gambling tag.
The very fact you placed a bet at all (regardless of the quality or quantity of pre-entry analysis conducted) registers it as a gamble.
Price could have âfaked upâ as you call it, preceded to fall (where you then executed your short bet), dropped 10-20 pips, stalled & either slowly or very quickly ratcheted back up through your entry & continued on regardless.
The point of all this being, when you clicked that short bet order on your platform the outcome of that order was/is totally unknown.
Iâm sorry to rain on your parade but that transaction (as do all transactions) constitutes a gamble, however well or poorly prepared.
I cannot for the life of me understand the psychological reluctance & refusal to accept exactly what type of endeavor you guys are really involved in.
It truly is very bizarre indeed.[/QUOTE]
Of course trading is gambling⌠Whatâs your point?
Uncertain outcome with a higher then 50% chance of winning if repeated hundreds of times will provide a consistent and plentiful income⌠It does fits the definition of gambling but it also fits the definition of speculating (a subset of gambling) as well⌠The game of semantics is a pointless one indeed.
Hi Dan, the point of my post was to attempt to explain an inner emotion, itâs not easy and itâs def not black and white.
I was hoping some new traders might learn from it.
I suspect that if someone approaches trading with a gamblerâs view - then they will do what I did today, and often they will be right and lose (like today). If they can somehow âseeâ the difference in speculation and gambling then they have a chance of deciding which to be.
The great Jesse Livermore said it better than I can ever hope to:
âPeople always talked about my instincts, especially after the Union Pacific story and the San Francisco earthquake. But I never thought my instincts were that special. The instincts of a seasoned speculator are really no different than the instincts of a farmer, like my father.
In fact I consider farmers the biggest gamblers in the world. Planting their crops every year, gambling on the price of wheat,corn or cotton or soybeans, choosing the right crop to plant, gambling on the weather or insects - the unpredictable demand for the crop - what was more speculative. The same applies to all businessâ - Jesse Livermore 1940
The speculator would have approached the trade today differently than a gambler - today I was a gambler, for 35yrs I have been a speculator - I can âfeelâ the difference.
You are simply two faces of the same person peterma.
As pizza rightly observed, itâs all semantics.
Youâre dressing it up to mask the slightly less acceptable or more abrasive description of what youâre involved in, & if by mentally or emotionally separating or de-categorizing the two somehow eases the anxiety & comforts the soul, so be it.
I suppose folks could classify it as money arranging if it makes them feel more accepted by their friends & family.
The fact remains, whichever way you slice it gambling, speculating & risk taking are all tightly intertwined & amount to the same thing when the wash gets hung out to dry.
LOL Iâm always quoting these old traders, I have very few heroes - Richard D Wyckoff is one of them.
He struggled for an explanation for this very phenomenon - the difference between gambling and speculation.
He encountered many gamblers in the stock market, it both saddened and maddened him, it was part of the reason for his drive to educate, he also encountered many âspeculatorsâ some of whom he would term poor speculators, others such as JP Morgan stood out - he could see a clear distinction between the gambler and the speculator.
Iâll quote one little piece from his 1925 writing -
" The cultivation of foresight is most essential - In the main the man with the greatest amount of foresight is the most successful in the security market.
Foresight is the very essence of speculation. Without the use of it a person is not speculating at all - he is merely taking chances - gambling" - R D Wyckoff 1925
He goes on to attribute âa large part of my successâ to forming âthe habit of looking ahead to see in what direction future events are likely to runâ, and to exhort his readers to cultivate the attribute of foresight.
In these few sentences he is trying to point out the difference between gambling and speculation, to him, and others of his era, this difference stemmed from the different approach a new would be trader adopted from the outset.
Pizza uses foresight - indeed he argues strongly in itâs favour, hence the bal in his account has a tendency to go upward - some will argue he is merely gambling but I say no - read his thread and you can find speculation - there IS a difference.
So I say to all new traders - forget about being a gambler - undertake to be a speculator, one who is determined to learn, learn and learn again.
Wyckoff started his book in 1925 by saying â During the last 33 years I have been a persistent student of the security marketsâ - he never stopped learning.
A person is gambling whenever he or she takes the chance of losing money or belongings, and when winning or losing is decided mostly by chance. so i would say that gambling is just a small part of forex trading but not everythingâŚgenerally gambling falls under speculation.
What you should say to new traders is for get about semantics. Clearly define for yourself what being a gambler is to you and what speculating is to you. I have rules I trade by and when I follow them consistently. To my definition Iâm speculating. If I go outside those trading rules then to me Iâm gambling. Pizza said itsâ all semantics and pointless. Heâs right about being semantics, but not about pointless, I never really took the time to think about the difference until this thread so I hope everybody learns the lesson of this thread. Itâs easy to understand things in the black area; as well as the white area; but for must itâs the grey area that makes or kills you.
AT last! thks gp.
The old traders understood the difference - itâs a mindset - I just scrolled up to the top of the page âI make ÂŁ170.00 every day from homeâ says the ad - itâs dead easy, and as Livermore said, weâre all lazy - just click here.
It was difficult to be a speculator and not a gambler in 1905, in 1925 and in 1940 -imo itâs even more difficult now, just click here and you are in the market making loads of virtual money - hey this is soooo easy, gambling?, speculating? hey who cares â just click here.
I truly believe, that a prospective trader in being aware of and understanding the difference in being a gambler and in being a speculator, and chooses the path of speculation, abandons the notion of easy money, of get rich quick, of this thing has gone so high it must fall, of the second guessing that goes with gambling - that person may become the next Richard D Wyckoff.
The gambler, on the other hand, well his next trade will always be just a gamble.
Youâre welcome. and well said
A speculator is still a gambler⌠All speculators are gamblers, but not all gamblers are speculators. You can approach trading just like a slot machine⌠Or you can approach it with thought, strategy, analysis⌠Just like poker. Still gambling though. No reason to shy away from the label.
Yes I totally understand your point peterma⌠âSpeculatingâ (the way you are using the word) connatates a certain amount of self awareness⌠Skill⌠Patience⌠Discipline⌠Analysis⌠Confidence in oneâs decision.
âGamblingâ (the way you are using the word) connatates undisciplined trades⌠entering a trade based on emotions and âhopingâ it wins⌠Not really doing analysisâŚ
Many people who bet (gamble) on horse racing would consider themselves âspeculatorsâ considering the time and effort they put into analyzing the horses before placing their bets⌠There are probably horse betting forums where there is a thread titled âhorse betting is not gamblingâ 
Afterall⌠whenever you buy eurusd you are essentially betting that a horse named âEuroâ will race faster then a horse named âUS Dollarâ over a period of timeâŚ
I agree with your whole post, and for sure not only horse betting but same goes for poker, black jack, football, baseeball, hockey 
My wife went to the casino with her girl friend and said she never had so much fun, playing the slots. . .unlike when she went with me and gets told the slots are for suckers if you want to gamble play the slots if you want to win play video poker
LOL maybe Iâm flogging a dead horse.
When I buy eur/usd it can be said that essentially I am betting that a horse named âEuroâ will race faster, by that same token, it can then be said that I am hoping that Euro has the legs.
âIt is a human trait to be âHopefulâ and equally so to be 'Fearful, but when you inject hope and fear into the business of speculation you are faced with a very formidable hazard.â (Yep - Jesse Livermore)
Gambling per se is not a lack of discipline, to be a successful gambler one must follow a discipline, gambling and speculation are two different arts - I am reasonably good at speculation and totally useless at gambling.
Anyways, good to see your thread back in action - learner traders, go have a look at Pizzaâs thread - like I said before, think outside the box
Sorry about your horse.
Livermore constantly referred to his trades as âbetsâ. Wonder whyâŚ
Observation: To say you are reasonably good at speculation, but useless at gambling, is like saying you are great at sketching, but useless at drawing.
Iâve done a really good job of staying out of this thread. â Until now.
I told myself that, since I disagree with almost everyone on this thread, jumping into this debate probably wonât change any minds, and it will just piss a lot of people off. Oh, well. Thatâs never stopped me before, so why should it stop me now?
Most of you guys are talking about gambling as if the definition of gambling has something to do with your ability to assess risk, or your rate of success when you take risks. And I think that most of you guys are wrong.
You can enter into an activity in which there is risk â risk of loss, of harm, even of death â with (1) a perfect understanding of the risk involved and how to minimize your exposure to it, and (2) a superb track-record in similar situations in the past, surviving and winning despite the risk â and none of that has anything to do with [I]whether or not you are gambling.[/I]
Gambling is taking [I]unnecessary[/I] risks, that is, risks for which there is no economic justification. Period.
If you engage in a no-holds-barred fight, knowing that the loser will be maimed or killed, [I]you may or may not be gambling[/I] with your life, depending on why you are in that fight. The definition of gambling in this case has nothing to do with the brutality of the fight, with your skill as a fighter, or with your previous record in similar fights. It has everything to do with whether or not you need to take this risk. If you are fending off a criminal attack, fighting to save yourself and your family from harm or death, you are not gambling, regardless of the âoddsâ for or against you in this fight. On the other hand, if you are in this fight for sport, hoping for the glory, or the title, or the prize-money which winning will bring you â then you most certainly are gambling with your physical wellbeing, and possibly with your life.
If you bungee-jump off a bridge for the thrill of it, you definitely are gambling (to some extent) with your life. You have no economic necessity to engage in such an activity, and therefore the risk you are taking is a pure gamble.
If you sit down to a poker game, it doesnât matter how knowlegable and skilled you may be, and it doesnât matter how often you have won big money in similar games. You have no economic necessity to be in this risky environment. You can rant all you want about poker being (for you) a business; about poker being âyour jobâ and the way you earn your living; about poker being (for you) a very low-risk endeavor, because you are so good at it. The fact remains that there is no economic necessity for you, or anyone else, to engage in poker. Poker serves only one purpose: to provide an entertaining way for players to take unnecessary risks in the hope of winning a reward (money, an ego-boost, a tournament title, the admiration of friends, etc.).
Betting on a horse-race is gambling in every instance, just as poker is.
And [I]speculating in the financial markets â any financial market â is gambling[/I] to the same extent, and for the same reason, namely that there is no economic necessity or justification for doing it.
Peter Fearon (peterma, on this forum) has frequently mentioned trading the EUR/GBP in the course of his business. To the extent that his business requires this trading, it is not gambling. If he were to speculate (for fun and profit) on the EUR/GBP, or on any other financial instrument, he would be gambling, regardless of his skill in this form of gambling.
Some people on this thread, and on the various other forex/gambling threads on this forum, have pointed out that the existence of risk in an activity does not define that activity as gambling. Everything in life, they correctly assert, entails some degree of risk. There are risks associated with driving your car, with starting a business, with operating a power-tool, with entering into a partnership agreement, with having children, and on and on. Up to this point, they are absolutely correct in their analysis.
But then, they run off the rails by asserting that whether or not some risky activity is gambling depends on how skillfully you deal with the risks involved. Wrong. For each participant, an activity is either gambling, or not, depending on that participantâs reason for engaging in it.
Forex trading is either gambling, or not, depending on your reason for engaging in it â not on your skill at doing it.
For the commercial interests engaged in foreign currency transactions, their positions are not gambling â even if they make stupid trades because they donât know what they are doing, and donât understand the risks involved. Regardless of their degree of knowledge, their ability to evaluate risk, or their skill at getting in and out of currency positions, they are assuming the risks inherent in currency trading out of economic necessity, not for fun and profit.
On the other hand, all of us at the retail level of the forex market are gambling in this market. We are here, doing what we do, precisely for the fun and/or profit of doing it. And regardless of whether our motivation is fun or profit or both, forex trading â for us â is 100% gambling, pure and simple. Regardless of whether we are successful pros, or bumbling newbies, forex trading â for us â is 100% gambling, because we have no valid economic purpose in being here, and in taking these risks.
The people who are most insistent that forex is not gambling are people with religious or ethical issues with the whole idea of gambling. For these people, gambling is one of the worldâs great evils, like drug addiction or child abuse. These people will twist themselves into pretzels trying to rationalize that a gambling activity like forex trading is not really gambling if done right â and they do this rationalizing because they want to engage in this activity without the religious or ethical condemnation they fear.
People who think that there is a horrible stigma attached to gambling, because gambling is inherently evil, find it necessary to divide the world into two categories: Things that are Gambling, and Things that are Not Gambling. And they have to arrange their thinking so that everything they do, and all the things they would like to do, are in the âNot Gamblingâ category, even if it means rigidly clinging to twisted logic.
Those people are so stuck in their current mindsets that no amount of reasoning will ever persuade them thatâŚ
âŚforex is gambling.
For the rest of you, I hope that my argument has been persuasive.
85.6% of statistics are made up on the spot. And 94.7% of the people believe themâŚ
Youâre right your post wonât change anyoneâs mind and since your post is just a rehash of whatâs already been said I canât see anyone getting pissed off.
First off I wouldnât want anyone to confuse your post with fact, when itâs not; your post like everyone else s in this thread is your opinion, based on how you define gambling, risk , fun, work, reward etc. As many have said and using pizzaâs word itâs all semantics. I think whether the forex is gambling or not, every trader will have to make up their own mind according to their definitions not yours, Tangs, pizzaâs, peterma, mine or everyone else who offered an opinion.
What I hope traders will take from this thread is that when it comes to forex trading they define risk, reward, loss,profit, gambling or speculation and all the other elements according to their definition and circumstances. Of course this is just my opinion
Maybe because itâs not true, his trades, in his view, were part of his business, arrived at as a result of an analysis of his detailed record keeping.
He did, however, reserve the word âbetâ for what he termed âinvestorsâ:
" Speculators in stock markets have lost money. But I believe it a safe statement that the money lost by speculation alone is small compared with the gigantic sums lost by so-called investors who have let their investments ride.
From my viewpoint, the investors are the big gamblers. They make a bet, stay with it, and if it goes wrong, they lose it all." - Jesse Livermore 1940
Cannot find a single instance of his referring to his own trades as âbetsâ.
Aha - maybe the horse isnât dead after all!!
Of course itâs my [I]opinion.[/I] I think I made that perfectly clear.
So, whatâs your point?