Difference between "trading" and "gambling"

[Derek27]

When I've watch gamblers, like Harry Findlay, for example, and they bet to win. There doesn't seem to be much detail or logic behind it. Whereas traders tend to work to a detailed brief and expectancy. You know where you are going wrong.

Of course, not all traders are pure traders and some are gamblers calling themselves traders.

I can assure you that gambling is nothing but logic and detail and probably has more variables and requires far more race analysis than trading. It's just that all the work goes into compiling a tissue and finding the value, long before you get to place a bet.

[ShaunWhite]

When I've watch gamblers.....there doesn't seem to be much detail or logic behind it.

? When I've seen gamblers they seem to spend half their life looking at timeform, sectional timings, bloodlines etc etc etc, they certainly think it's all detail and logic.

Whereas, the famous YouTube trader I follow (cough cough) rocks up, gets a feel for the market in about a minute, and starts making money

To be fair, I think gamblers study each race, but traders study fundamentals that apply to many races. I'm not sure winners in either discipline work any harder, or any smarter, than each other. If anything winning at gambling seems harder than winning at trading.

[Derek27]

One thing I can say for certain, with the sheer volume of racing, is that betting on horse racing takes up far more time and commitment, which is one of the reasons I've put it to one side for now.

Traders can have a few days off without having to catch up and keep up-to-date with form.

[Dallas]

I see and class gamblers/punters as people who bet and forget.
How they decide what to bet is down to each individual but once its placed that's it job done

Where as traders place a bet with the intension of doing something else whether that be closing the position, greening up etc.

Therefore whatever i do via Bet Angel/Betfair I consider as trading,
If i walk into a casino and sit at a a blackjack or roulette table i will be placing a bet and forgetting about it as i have no control over what happens next.

Or to put it very simply
Gambling = Someone that Buys (bets)
Trading = Someone that Buys & Sells

[trader44]

i have been a gambler/trader its a complete rollercoaster of a ride . trading is far safer for me especially being an excitable character

[Derek27]

If i walk into a casino and sit at a a blackjack or roulette table i will be placing a bet and forgetting about it as i have no control over what happens next.

If I walked into a casino I would just tip the bird at the roulette table whatever I thought I'd lose in an hour and spend the hour at the bar.

In this day and age, with all the gambling options available, both skilled and unskilled, it's hard to believe that people still watch a wheel spin round.

[MemphisFlash]

i would never play roulette, the house edge is too great, Blackjack and Texas hold 'em are my games of choice.
Card counting in blackjack, and betting accordingly,
Texas Hold 'em just for the social aspect of the game.

[gutuami]

the main difference is that a trader will always have a closing bet. other differences are the commission generated, nr of bets placed per market, and matched volume. now if you take hr traders - most of them do not know much about horses names, jockes ect.

[LeTiss]

I've told this story before, but 25 years ago I was a betting shop manager for Ladbrokes. I befriended a customer who was quite a big punter. He told me that he's barred from many casinos, due to his constant wins on roulette. Luckily, he wasn't banned from Tiberius in Southampton (now closed).

I met him for a few beers and we went into Tiberius.

It turns out he did have a massive edge over the house. He had mastered the sequence of numbers on the wheel, in fact he could instantly tell you how many numbers black 31 was from zero, both clockwise and ant-clockwise. He was targeting croupiers, not sequences of numbers. Croupiers are supposed to vary the spins, but they are only human, they get into routines and ruts. Apart from mixing it clockwise and ant-clockwise they just throw the ball in at the same speed. This guy would closely watch what number was in line with their hand when they threw the ball in, noted where it finished and then calculated how many numbers apart they were. Casinos offer that small window between the ball entering the wheel and the croupier saying "no more bets" - it was that window which gave him the edge, because once he saw patterns emerging he could strike. He predicted with amazing accuracy the range of 5 numbers where the ball would end up.

He did get banned from Tiberius, and he moved on, so I never knew what happened to him

[Derek27]

i would never play roulette, the house edge is too great

Are you being serious ?

The roulette overround is approximately 102.78%. Compare that to virtual horse racing, which is a probability game so exactly the same thing. Probability games should have a slight edge, but because it's a certain edge in their favour, serious gamblers like you and me will never be interested in these games, because we can't win.

Having said that, a bookie gave me a few free spins on their roulette wheel (with complex terms & conditions that made it impossible to win anything without losing a lot more), but when I saw the sexy continental girl looking straight at the camera, flicking her eye-lashes and smiling at me, I can easily see why some people get drawn into it.

[Derek27]

I've told this story before, but 25 years ago I was a betting shop manager for Ladbrokes. I befriended a customer who was quite a big punter. He told me that he's barred from many casinos, due to his constant wins on roulette. Luckily, he wasn't banned from Tiberius in Southampton (now closed).

I met him for a few beers and we went into Tiberius.

It turns out he did have a massive edge over the house. He had mastered the sequence of numbers on the wheel, in fact he could instantly tell you how many numbers black 31 was from zero, both clockwise and ant-clockwise. He was targeting croupiers, not sequences of numbers. Croupiers are supposed to vary the spins, but they are only human, they get into routines and ruts. Apart from mixing it clockwise and ant-clockwise they just throw the ball in at the same speed. This guy would closely watch what number was in line with their hand when they threw the ball in, noted where it finished and then calculated how many numbers apart they were. Casinos offer that small window between the ball entering the wheel and the croupier saying "no more bets" - it was that window which gave him the edge, because once he saw patterns emerging he could strike. He predicted with amazing accuracy the range of 5 numbers where the ball would end up.

He did get banned from Tiberius, and he moved on, so I never knew what happened to him

I find it really hard to believe that anyone could do this. If you're bad at darts, you'll probably hit a 17 when you're aiming for a treble top, but you won't a 17 every time. I don't believe the croupier could push the ball with a velocity so similar each time, that it could be predicted to within 5 numbers.

[ShaunWhite]

I find it really hard to believe that anyone could do this. If you're bad at darts, you'll probably hit a 17 when you're aiming for a treble top, but you won't a 17 every time. I don't believe the croupier could push the ball with a velocity so similar each time, that it could be predicted to within 5 numbers.

Even the right half of the wheel 60% of the time would be enough. You can bang the bets on quickly too using call bets aka 'French bets'. Two bets can cover just over half the wheel, one bet on Orphelins and one on either Voisins du Zero or Tiers du Cylindre. And if you predict it's midway then just sit it out.

[MemphisFlash]

the house edge for roulette is 5.26% compared to approx 0.5% for blackjack using basic strategy and card counting

[LeTiss]

I find it really hard to believe that anyone could do this. If you're bad at darts, you'll probably hit a 17 when you're aiming for a treble top, but you won't a 17 every time. I don't believe the croupier could push the ball with a velocity so similar each time, that it could be predicted to within 5 numbers.

I never said he won every spin. Example every time the croupier threw the ball in clockwise, he may have noticed the ball consistently ending up between 8-13 numbers from where she threw the ball in, so every time she went for a clockwise spin, he would watch what numbers were in kine with ther hand and place 5 chips onto the 5 numbers that were 8-13 numbers from there. That window before they said "no more bets" allowed him to get his bets on. Don't forget, when the house is paying 35/1 for a winning number, he only needed to be right every 7 spins to wipe his face. I reckon his strike rate was somewhere between 25-33%.

[THENUTS]

I never said he won every spin. Example every time the croupier threw the ball in clockwise, he may have noticed the ball consistently ending up between 8-13 numbers from where she threw the ball in, so every time she went for a clockwise spin, he would watch what numbers were in kine with ther hand and place 5 chips onto the 5 numbers that were 8-13 numbers from there. That window before they said "no more bets" allowed him to get his bets on. Don't forget, when the house is paying 35/1 for a winning number, he only needed to be right every 7 spins to wipe his face. I reckon his strike rate was somewhere between 25-33%.

To get a quarter to a third of all spins right without a computerised aid is highly unlikely.

Read this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-All-Market ... 1400067960 and you will understand why

Ed Thorp is one of the smartest guys of all time and he needed a computer to tell him where the ball was going to land. This is a man who worked out how to beat blackjack in the 1960's when is was accepted to be impossible to do so. He then told everyone after he worked it out instead of taking millions out of the casino's. He then went on to take hundreds of millions out of the stock market. A fabulous read.