Thread: which has bigger chance to win: poker, sport betting, stoack market

I heard, but I am not sure.

10% people can win in poker

very few people can win in sport betting,

about 70% of people lost money in stock market.

So what Is your question?

Originally Posted by steelcat

I heard, but I am not sure.

10% people can win in poker

very few people can win in sport betting,

about 70% of people lost money in stock market.

For some people poker is not gambling, but rather money management. Professional poker players can earn a very good living doing nothing else than playing poker. I would guess the same might be said about buying and selling stocks, however the learning curve can be brutal in the stock market.

All three of these things depend extremely highly on the knowledge of the subject. If you just try to burst into any of the three, you'll tend to lose far more than the more experienced and knowledgable of the "betters"

If you gamble you could win or lose, if you are a stock broker a bookie or run poker games you have a much better chance of winning.

I think it all boils down to whether you're just using luck or skill.

There's skill in analysing the situation at hand when you're playing poker, betting on sports, or playing with the stock market.

I'd say it's more about the skill rather than the luck. Without skill, you'll win purely based on luck, and that's not a safe situation to be in. You'll end up losing.

Investing in tax free mutual bonds.

Investing in real estate.

These would be better than those things you wrote about.

The house always wins. It doesn't matter what the game is.

No matter how you set the game up if the game is fair everybody in it has an equal chance of winning and the maximum winnings are only the money wagered as betting.
However once the games are in the house (a casino, a stock markets, a racetrack) the house has to take enough money out of the gambler's pockets for their profits.
In other words the games are no longer fair and even.

Poker because you can directly engage the other players and engage skill. The others are pure chance. The only skill in the stock market is cheating. And it's defined that way by the SEC.

Index funds are generally the way to go in the stock market. These funds tie themselves to a recognized stock index, such as the Standard and Poor 500. The object is to maintain a portfolio proportional to the stocks that make up the index. Management is pretty simple and largely done by computer, making management costs potentially low. The fund winds up rising in value at nearly the same rate as the index.

Only a tiny percentage of managed funds perform as well as index funds. Managed funds are run by highly educated full time market analysts, they can only do as well as an index fund if they get exceptionally lucky. Consider how poor your chances are if you are NOT a trained professional. If you like that sort of gambling, I recommend buying lottery tickets, your odds are better.

That said, as a long term investment, index funds can be a good choice. The stock market fluctuates dramatically, and some years you will see a substantial loss, but on average, the U.S. stock market does pretty well. The S&P 500 index has risen an average of 8.24% a year over the last 30 years.

Danhanegan makes a good point because stocks markets are the only choice among the ones you offered that takes money out of the environment instead of just feeding on the participants.
(It would be like one of those gambling shows where the advertising dollars are used to fund the show and some of the show's advertisement earnings are used to sweeten the pot.)

Historically stocks have been a huge winner particularly for those not in a hurry and with a bit of unemotional detachment.

The past few years somewhat amazing the S&P nearly doubled since Obama took office. (and yes I've made a killing with a quite conservative portfolio of mutual funds)

Be weary of average gains. Take this example; a firm wants you to invest with them. Their performance over the past 7 years has been as follows;

For the first 5 years they give 130% returns but for the last 2 they've made losses, returning only 40% then 60%.
The firm can tell you with a straight face that on average they've given 6% returns.
What's disturbing is that if you'd had money with them over those 7 years you'd have ended up with only 90% of what you started with!

On the other hand, Warren Buffet warns against trying to dance in and out of investments and of course past performance doesn't determine future performance.
If you want to invest, using several different angles might work best to protect versus loss. For instance, gold, bitcoins etc. might be relatively stable versus inflation
so it might work better than money in the bank for savings (which tends to lose money when the government keeps printing it all the time),
people (Warren Buffet) always seem to mention index funds, etc.