[Zetack]

As for the original question of gambling or not gambling, I believe that it certainly is gambling but that doesn't mean that it isn't something that can be profitable. The stock market is gambling too, but just about everyone thinks that that is an ok avenue to take to make money. Even putting your money into a US Treasury bond is gambling to a certain extent, any finance professor will tell you that there is no such thing as risk-free in the real world.

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Buying and selling stocks is not gambling, even if certain people treat it as if it were gambling. When you buy a stock, you aren't wagering. With out wagering there is no gambling. Taking a risk, as I have said above, is not synonimous with gambling.

If you buy a stock and it goes up, you haven't won a bet. The person who sold it to you doesn't come back to you and pay you off. You bought something, it increased in value, then maybe you sell it, maybe you don't, but in anycase you never bet with anybody that it would increase in value so you haven't been gambling.

Heck, maybe, the guy who sold the stock used the money to buy a stock that gained more money than the one you bought from him. I don't see you giving the seller any more money at this point for having won his gamble with you ... because he didn't bet you anything.

We often call taking a risk a gamble. That's an idiom. It doesn't make taking a risk gambling.

Wagering, people, wagering. Without wagering there is no gambling.

--Zetack