zlacker

One thing I always struggle with is how any of this is different from the stock market. Most people aren’t smart savvy investors just like most people aren’t smart savvy sports betters. Companies have good days and bad days (wins and losses), and people just invest their lives away hoping for a big change. The only thing I see being a major difference is that the industry around the stock market is too engrained in the world to be ever be removed. I dunno, this article made me really unhappy in a “shine the light on things you don’t think about daily” kind of way.

>>set5th+(OP)
The stock market has no house. Every winner is an investor.

Granted, retail investors lose more often than they win - but there’s no incentive of the market that ensures this - merely asymmetry of information. In contrast, commercial gambling can _only_ work if the house always wins.

This isn’t belied by peer-to-peer gambling (save for non-commercial instances, like a poker game among friends), since in these cases the facilitator will take an exorbitant cut.

Moreover, the stock market serves an ethically legitimate purpose - the efficient allocation of capital. Not so gambling.