Betting, gambling and investment risks.
Introduction.
Some people refer to making betting and gambling investments, as if they were buying or selling stocks and shares in the international finance markets. It’s an interesting thought as to whether people do this believing it gives an air of respectability to their betting and gambling; or do they do it because, for them, it is an investment opportunity? An often quoted objection to the betting and gambling industries is that they encourage people to put money that they cannot afford to lose at risk. However, those same people would not object to anyone who placed their money in some sort of business investment; despite the inherent risks of making a loss instead of a profit on that investment. So, why is it that taking one type of monetary risk is seen as acceptable whilst another isn’t?
Betting, gambling and respectability.
A prime reason that betting and gambling are deemed much more of a risk than a business investment is the inability of the gambling industry to shed it’s reputation for being corrupt and/or involving criminal elements. It seems to be the case despite the fact that people from all levels of society place bets and gamble that - the gambling industry is simply not a wholly respectable one. Anyone could become the innocent victim of corruption; in the form of ‘fixing’ the outcome of a sporting or gaming event. However, not everyone deliberately or knowingly becomes involved in illegal betting and gambling ‘scams’; but because of the simple reason that betting and gambling can be a quick way to make a profit on a small investment - there must be something crooked about it! The other constantly applied argument against betting and gambling is the threat of becoming addicted to it and, again, anything with a connotation of addiction to it cannot be seen as respectable. Addiction is, of course, a problem for some people towards all manner of things - and gambling is one them. Combating the allegations of luring people into gambling addictions is a problem for the industry; currently especially so for online gambling and betting websites. However, is it reasonable for the impression to be given that the betting and gambling industry is in some way capable of luring, seemingly, anyone and everyone into an addiction?
Business investments and respectability.
Everyone knows that stocks and shares are safe investments. The thought of anyone losing money because they’ve been caught up in a ‘scam’ to defraud people is ridiculous -right? Wrong, of course. I would say in recent months there have been more instances in the news of ‘stocks and shares’ or business investments that have turned out to have been down-right dishonest and illegal, if not at least having a ‘dodgy’ edge to them, compared to betting and gambling ones. A frequent occurrence on the news is that someone has taken money off other people for stocks and shares that don’t actually exist. Quite often when you read the details of these reports the people that have been defrauded say “the deal was too good to miss out on” or “it seemed a quick way to make some money”. More likely what they meant was the deal was literally “too good to be true” - yet this is seen as an acceptable, even respectable, risk to take and the people that were defrauded were merely unlucky. Whilst the whole world of business investments has a dark and murky side to it, it can also have an addictive edge to it. Apart from the very high profile cases involving billions of dollars, there will have been numerous cases of finance, bank and other business employees plunging their companies into untold debts; simply because they were unable to stop themselves from compounding errors they’d made in their trading activities. Quite simply these people were ‘addicted’ to what they were doing - unable to stop themselves; yet the financial industries always seems to be able to maintain a respectable face.
Monetary risk and respectability.
The sole reason for the expressing the above two points is simply this - is it right that one is seen as respectable and the other not? Anyone seeking to make a monetary profit by speculating is putting their money at risk. It really doesn’t matter whether you place a bet on a horse race or invest some money in an insurance company. On the one hand the horse might win, on the other it might fall or it might have been drugged. Alternatively the insurance company might not have to make any pay-outs and earn you a fortune, or it could be swamped with claims following a flood and become bankrupt or it might even not exist at all apart from on paper. Whether sporting or business - an investment is a risk!
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