[evandijk70]

I would say that gambling with skill component is still gambling. For example, in blackjack you can limit your losses by following a basic strategy, which is a 2x2 matrix with rows containing the value of your hand and columns containing the open dealer card.

If you can obtain an edge through a skill component (card counting in blackjack), some people wouldn't call this gambling anymore, but I would still call it gambling myself. Someone doing this for a living is a professional gambler.

What for me would be a sensible definition is that a bet/gamble has no other goals. Putting money in the bank/investing in a stock reallocates capital, which can be invested by someone. The fact that it is a risk-taking endeavor is merely a side effect. I would say the same goes for selling/buying insurance for your car.

So for me, the difference between betting and putting money in the bank/investing is that the primary goal is something different than the risk-taking activity.

[_heimdall]

Does this not boil down to the distinction being one's intent? I play poker occasionally, for example, and my primary goal is to win money not to take risk. Does that make it meet your definition of investing rather than gambling?

[sebastiennight]

Well you're not committing the money to purchase an asset that will generate returns, so no, it's not "investing".

It would be more accurate to say you're working, really: spending time and effort to earn money. Though the "work" here, assuming you're a skilled poker player sitting with lesser-skilled marks, is similar to a crypto bro performing a rug pull. You're enabling other participants to gamble in the hope of an uncertain win, while they actually are pretty much guaranteed to lose in a zero-sum game where the house will always earn its keep.

One could say that if everybody else at the table is gambling and you're working, it's still gambling. Lunch is lunch, whether you're the customer, the chef, or the lamb.

[_heimdall]

In poker the asset I invest in is just very short term - a single hand. I put money in when I expect the asset of that hand to pay off, risking the money a bit like an even shorter term day trade.

[sebastiennight]

I don't think this thread is the best place for the everlasting debate on whether day trading is "investing", but for the purposes of my definition above, day trading, like other kinds of trading like buying commodities for resale, or having a booth at the flea market, would fit my definition of "work" (you purchased something that you expect to generate profit from by putting in your time and effort) rather than investment, since the poker hand is not doing anything by itself to generate value/money/returns for you.

[KellyCriterion]

In most jurisdictions there is a difference:

"real gambling", random game like Roulette

"unreal gambling", game with incomplete information like Poker which allows you to get a better outcome based on skill & experience