Gambling

Uncertain riches

Where your treasure is--there is your heart.

All earthly treasures are corrupted.

Buy Enron and Citicorp.

Stop sending money to Sicily.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

In my country most families income is less than $200/month, sometimes they only eat twice a day. Please consider that those $450 could be very useuful for faithful christian people that doesn't have money to eat. If you don't care about the money they do.

 

Gambling is a tax placed upon people who are bad at Math!!!!!

 

No, investing doesn't require a loser. Sometimes there are losers. In your scenario above, the initial investors may or may not have lost money - they may have broken even, or they may have not earned as much as they could have, if they bailed early. Or they may have lost. But it was not a requirement that they lost. Not so with gambling. There has to be a loser in gambling, else the whole system crumbles and there is no house to coordinate the game.

 

This is more of a shot at me than anything else. Particularly because it presupposes that I don't already support missions and would care less about the suffering around the world.

In reality my wife and I give heartily to missions, in addition to our regular giving to our local church and go on mission trips throughout the world. Besides, it's just money.

 

Yeah but how many people in your local community are having their homes repossessed because of this adjustable rate business?

What about that whole Great Depression thing?

 

Securing a foolish loan arrangement is not comparable to responsible investing. And yes, some of these loan arrangements were similar to gambling, but that is far different than responsible, prudent investing.

This really has nothing to do with gambling.

Please provide a salient argument that responsible investing requires a loser in the same way that gambling does. You can't.

 

I once bought Xerox Stock at $19 and sold it at $6.

I think I lost a gamble and I think I was the loser!:tear:

 

I bought a Power Ball ticket a couple years ago when the jackpot was near $300 million. Didn't feel the least bit guilty. That's the only dollar I've ever bet and probably ever will.

 

I've never been inside a casino, but the ones I've seen on t.v. seem to be uncomely places where heavy drinking is the norm. James 1:27 says to "to himself unspotted from the world." To me, gambling is a worldly lust and I would not want to be associated with such a place.

 

Okay, this shouldn't too hard. Say we've got a market with four companies all selling a variation of widigets (the ubiquitous business object) and all are public companies.

Say I want to invest in WidigetsTech, Inc and lay down my money and get 500 shares of common stock. I believe WidigetsTech, Inc has a great platform and better product than the rest of the companies. My wager is that the stock will go up, WidigetsTech, Inc's marketshare will increase.

My friend has heavily invested in one of WidigetTech's competitors...BestWidiget. The problem with BestWidiget is they haven't made a better widiget than WidigetTech and their marketting is not as smooth. As WidigetTech's marketshare dramatically increases BestWidiget dramatically decreaes (along with the other companies.) Actually BestWidiget decreases so much the stock is devalued and drops 75% in value.

As WidigetTech rolls they buy up the shares of BestWidiget and takeover the company. My friend's initial investment of 1,000 is worth little more than the paper they are written on. He has lost a lot of money.

There is your scenario. In a clustered market as other companies do better marketshare increases dramatically and some will get left behind. Stocks are tied to company performance and often will depreciate. It is just as risky and there are losers. There are losers all the time. Just like the NFL.

 

So many assumptions in your scenario. There can't be more than 1 sucessful widget maker? Uh? Why? Coke/Pepsi/Big-K/RC anyone?

If there is always required to be a loser in investing, then there would be no economic growth, since it would be a zero-sum game like gambling (it is actually a negative sum game for the participants with the house taking the gain). But we know that's not the case - there is economic growth.

In addition, prudent, responsible investing is diversified. Sure, there are some companies that go under and if you bought their stock, then you lose money. And if that is the only stock you purchased, then that is not prudent investing. So something like that would be gambling in a sense. But prudent investment in the stock market has a diversity of assets that protects against such losses.

Try again.

 

I still say somebody somewhere lost. If the initial investors did not lose (breaking even or gaining insignificantly) they had to get the money to invest; pulling out of a bank or another company, which then lost capital. Even if they kept a big store of cash in the safes or under their mattresses they lost the interest on it.

No, there doesn't have to be a loser in gambling. For example, if I play poker against one other player, we could end up exactly even, or 'where we started from.' Besdies, where does "more blessed to give than to receive" come into the concept of an activity where one can lose [give] or win [receive]?

 

Then you don't understand capitalism correctly. Everyone can win (and eventually does) if things are done right.

True, but if there is a winner in poker, then there has to be a loser. Besides, no I know of has ever played and come out even!

 

Funny you should mention that.

 

5 to 2 says you haven't.

 

:laugh::laugh:
Odds are that the cards of this univers are stacked agianst those who do wrong. But when the chips are down, you can bet on Jesus. Until then, play close to the vest. I'm in.

 

A free-market economy is not a zero-sum game. If someone earns $100 (either by investing or laboring), it does not mean that someone else lost $100. Economics 101.

1) Does it ever happen that everyone comes out even in a gambling game? 2) You can probably make a distinction between regular casino gambling and other mass betting vs. a friendly wager between two friends. I'm not speaking to the latter necessarily.

Are you trying to say that if you lose money in gambling that you are somehow fullfilling the biblical principle of giving to others? Well, that's a new one! :tonofbricks:

 

Probably to those who think gambling is a wise endeavor, any such arguments to the contrary will fall on deaf ears.

 

What does that mean, double-pagan?