Poker is not a game of chance!

What's the difference between gambling and investing? When you make an investment, you are investing money or other valuable things for a profit.

I recently ran a poker workshop for a community of distinguished people. After that, two people from a large residential complex approached me and asked if I would like to conduct the same seminar in their area. At their request, I contacted the person responsible for organizing such events. His answer surprised me a lot: "Poker? This is gambling! I don't approve of gambling. Forget it." Since then I've been thinking about it a lot, and I came to the idea ... poker is not a game of chance!

Right. I said this: Poker is not exciting! He is as passionate as investing in the stock exchange. This is more of an investment for profit. How so?

What's the difference between gambling and investing? When you make an investment, you are investing money or other valuable things for a profit. You hope your investment will be profitable. So you say that gambling involves inevitable risk. There is a danger - a possibility - that you will not get a return on your investment and possibly lose your money. But this statement is just as true when you make any investment. Moreover, you run the risk even when you cross the road: you may be hit by a car, or you will simply slip and break your leg. There is an element of risk in almost everything we do.

If not risk, then perhaps a more appropriate word to explain gambling is - chance. When you play, you have a chance. This is an unpredictable thing. You cannot control this. If you flip a coin, you have no control over whether it falls tails or heads. If you throw a coin into a slot machine, you will not be able to control the moment when it should stop spinning.

Control, make decisions

Well well! Control is power over events. You can direct, stop, dominate them. Without control, you really just take risks. The key factor in this case is one: decision making. Are you able to make important decisions and influence the result? When you are in control of the situation, you can analyze it and take the most appropriate action. You make a choice. If it's correct, you make a profit. You are a winner!

And that's why poker is not a game of chance. As you develop your skill, you can make the right decisions - decisions that help you win money.

Of course, there is an element of luck in poker. This is another reason for gambling, because you can lose your money despite the fact that you made the right decision. But if you always do this, the laws of probability will make you a winner in the race.

It's like investing in real estate

Playing poker is like investing in real estate for profit. In both cases, you have the ability to make key decisions: Buy me this apartment building? In this district? Do I need to renovate the building? Should we raise the rental price? Should pets be allowed in the house? Rent out this pair or check them more carefully? To be successful in real estate investing you must make a huge number of decisions. If you are experienced and you have the skills, you will be successful, it will be profitable.

Likewise, when you have excellent poker skills, you know how to make the right decisions: Play at this table? Change position? Enter the pot or fold? Raise? Is this a good bluffing opportunity? What is my rival; is it possible that he has a straight? You are in control of the game, you make your own decisions. This is more like an investment than a gamble, where you obey only blind chance.

Assessment - Gambling vs. Investments

We can evaluate these two options based on the main factor: decision making. In absolute gambling, like flipping a coin or using slot machines in Las Vegas, you practically do not decide anything - other than how to flip coins or not, to throw a token into the machine or not. This is absolutely, at 100%, gambling.

When you invest in a financial exchange, we have the opportunity to receive information about the shares that we are going to purchase; but as soon as we purchased them, we have only three options to control the further course of events: buy more, do nothing, or sell shares. All re
Any manager who is two thousand miles away from us, who may also be interested in manipulating these shares or receiving bonuses, rather than raising the price of our shares, accepts any transactions that affect the price of our shares. We have absolutely no control.

Another option for pure investment, with almost no risk, is to buy shares in a gold and foreign exchange fund, or to buy government-protected shares in a large bank.

Everything else lies between these two extremes. The more decisions you can make, the closer your investment is to the concept of "investment" rather than gambling.

Let's face it, poker is not a pure investment. There is a big risk or chance of losing. Still, I would rate poker closer to real estate investment rather than gambling. What do you think?

Author: George Epstein