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The difference between Investing and Gambling

“This is not financial advice please do your own research”

After watching this movie I had an epiphany.  That movie is “The Wizard of lies” by Robert De Niro. The movie is about Enron, basically the journey of Bernie Madoff. I must say Robert Deniro did a very good job. In one scene Bernie Madoff (played by Robert De Niro) was being questioned about his deeds, this is what he said, “people are greedy”. it is interesting that he said that, it is almost as if he knows what is deep in the subconsciousness of people.  As if to say people let their greed get the best of them. The rule of thumb is, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. 

        One of the root causes of the problem is the difference between gambling and investing. For starters we must understand how money works, the value of money, what gives it value, and the stock market. More often than not when people say they are telling us about investing, they are usually telling us about gambling… and to convince us to gamble with our money. ( not theirs)

According to the oxford dictionary, investing is expending money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result,  gambling is playing a game of chance. Just from the definition alone, we can differentiate between the two, another definition of investments that I personally like is “buying assets that increase in value. Investment does take time but the problem is when the lines are blurred and we have some sweet talker telling us we would be millionaires overnight.  Many are told they are investing when in actual fact they are gambling. This is not to say there isn’t any risk involved, all investments carry some sort of risk, hell everything we do carries some sort of risk, it is up to us to assess the level of risk involved and how much risk we are comfortable with.  I’m not telling anyone what to do, if you like gambling go for it, but at least we should know which is which, the line between gambling and investing is very thin and we must all spend time doing research because money is a little difficult to come by, especially in these times. If you don’t understand what you are being told, please don’t spend grandma’s retirement money, and don’t “gamble with your 401k.

Sam Bankman-Fried

 

A lot didn’t understand what was going on in the crypto world, yet they were convinced they would make money, and we all saw what happened.