Intelligent people can earn money by gambling?

Hyo Hardell: Gambling is about luck.It's better to not start playing at all rather than get addicted.I don't think IQ has anything to do with it.A smart person, and intelligent person wouldn't start in the first place....Show more

May Stands: There is a similarity but it also depends on how you play the game. The longer you play at a casino the more likely you are to lose all of your money. That's a fact the casino industry is based upon. The house has a slight edge in every game so the longer you play the more likely they are to take your money. The best thing you can do if you find yourself ahead at a casino is to walk away with your winnings. Few people do. They "let it ride" and eventually get wiped out. With stocks, if you spread your money around through mutual funds or you buy at the individual stocks of at least 10 companies it is incredibly unlikely every company would go bankrupt and leave you with nothing. Time is on your side in stocks. Markets may be vo! latile but the long term trend is upward. Of course, there are things you can do to make things worse. If you panic every time the market drops and sell you are hurting your returns. Likewise, if you wait until the market rallies before buying back in you have already missed the big gains and risk losing money if the market drops - and you panic again. This is "buying high and selling low" - the exact opposite of what you want to be doing. But lots of people fall into this trap. That's why experts tell you to build a diversified portfolio and resist the temptation to tinker with it other than to occasionally rebalance if your asset allocation drifts from your plan. Remember that when people talk about how the stock market gains an average of 8 to 10 percent a year they are talking about a long term average. The market rarely returns 8 to 10 percent in any one year. It's far more likely to go up 20% in one year and be flat the next. And the long term trend is for one negativ! e year out of every five. The three consecutive years of decli! nes in 2000-2002 basically made up for the ridiculous winning streak stocks had been on since 1982....Show more