Is Investing Gambling? How to Tell, and What to Do If It Is

Real investing has a positive expected return over time because you own a slice of productive businesses. Gambling has a negative expected return because the house takes a cut on every bet.

The grey zone, day trading, options, leveraged ETFs, meme stocks, crypto micro-caps and CFDs, sits closer to the casino end of the spectrum than to investing.

If trading is scratching a gambling itch, you will lose money. The fix is not better stock picks, it is replacing the activity with something your worst self cannot game.

The boring system: a monthly direct debit into a single low-cost global index fund. No app to refresh, no edge to chase, no story to lie to yourself with.