Addiction Markets

I find it odd that almost nobody ever refers stock trading as gambling. While for most persons it is nothing else.

Because at the end of the day you are buying an asset. Whether that asset stays valuable or not will change.

Gambling is the chance to have nothing at the end.

What it comes down to I think is that historically, on average, stock traders come out ahead while "gamblers" do not. (Of course you can still go all-in on one company, or buy insane options, or use leverage, etc., and thereby gamble on stocks.)

Stock trades with sufficiently gambling-like payout structures do on occasion get regulated as gambling, see for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_option

Because stock trading isn't zero sum.

Yes, it is negative sum after transaction costs and taxes.

Investors come out ahead, not traders. The more "trading" it is (meaning more short term), the more like gambling it is. There's even a point where you go from positive to negative sum.

No, it's not. Person A buys stock 1, stock one goes from $10 to $15. Person A makes $5. Person B buys it at $15 and then it pays a $1 dividend, person B makes $1. It's not zero sum, everyone can win.

With stocks there is real chance to have nothing at all at end too. Lot of companies have failed. And stock holders are last on the list to get returns in bankruptcy.

Know your customer laws are gambling regulation in disguise.

That only applies for industries that are growing. And most of the “gambling” happens in options markets which are perfectly zero sum before fees.

Shrinking industries can still generate profit, and can still give out dividends.

Because most people cannot define the difference between investing and gambling.

Also the stock market is NOT 0-sum. A buyer and seller can both "win".

You changed the goal posts, the thread started with stock. Derivatives are completely different.

You are changing the definition, everything has a chance of losing value. There are some things that will never have value, or close to 0.

Hmm perhaps you haven't been reading money stuff? He has pretty consistently noted that Robinhood is specifically a gambling app

> Also the stock market is NOT 0-sum. A buyer and seller can both "win".

If you look the whole lifetime of the stock and all owners and their transactions, it is close to zero-sum. Company can get more wealth by selling which is the exception and your argument. But for average retail-trader it is zero-sum game.

If we're talking trading, it means a short timeframe, let's say over a few days. The stock market doesn't really grow over a few days, it's basically zero sum. So every gain you make is balanced by someone else's loss. The issue is both the sellers and buyers are paying transaction costs and taxes, which makes it actually negative sum.

If person A waited a few days and the stock shot up, then it's basically gambling since no stock has 50% expected returns in a few days. These are the "random" fluctuations in the market. Another person made a similar bet and their stock went to $5 instead, losing money. Overall it's negative sum.

If person A waited a few years instead and their stock went up to $15, sure then it's different. But it's stock investing, not trading. They made a profit because they held stocks, not traded them. You also get dividends for holding stocks, not trading them.

You are only ever expected to make money from trading stocks since you kind of also have to hold the stocks for a bit. Stock traders accidentally invest and that's how they make any money at all compared to pure gamblers.

Note that I am talking about the vast majority of stock traders here but not the financial experts or algo trading firms that try to find inefficiencies and exploit them. They can actually help with price discovery and profit by making the markets more efficient. But even they're only making calculated bets at best much like good poker players. Most regular people have no chance.