Over the last half a decade, crypto has become increasingly popular and more people are investing daily. Cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, have tens of millions of accounts that are active. However, crypto is just as popular as it is controversial with some people seeing it as the future of money and some people seeing it as an unnecessary risk.
Whether you like to invest or not, you will hear about crypto all the time from people who don’t like it and from people who do. One of the main questions about crypto is if it’s a form of gambling or not and we are here to answer that question for you.
What Defines Gambling?
When people think about gambling, they will think about sports betting like American football or using bookmakers to view Greyhound odds today etc. but Bitcoin might not be something you think of, but does that mean it isn’t gambling? I think investing in crypto is a form of gambling but that is just my opinion. The reason I think this is because the definition of gambling is to take risky action in the hope of a desired result, and crypto means investing in the hopes of making more money.
What are the similarities?
There are a lot of differences and similarities so if someone was to say that it was a form of gambling or they said it wasn’t, both decisions could be completely valid. But what are the similarities?
Lows and Highs
Crypto rising and a bet winning give you the same “high” and will make the spending worth the risk. When people win or crypto rises, people like to carry on chasing the feeling and win even more. Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it fails which could mean a loss of money.
Uncertainty
The long-term future and the prices of crypto are unknown. The constant stress of seeing if the crypto falls or rises is something that is impossible to predict. This is similar to the feeling of gambling, whether it is slots or sports betting, the uncertainty of winning is still there.
Safety
One of the things that is overall negative here is people trying to take advantage of people’s naivety in investing or gambling. Someone online that you trust will tell you to invest in a new coin that just came out or the dealer will tell you to play one more round. If you are safe and don’t let people try to take advantage of this, investing and gambling alike are fun.
What are the differences?
We have listed the similarities so it is only fair we list the differences for people who do not agree with us.
Crypto Is Not Entirely Up to Chance
Buying cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, and investing can be done smartly and effectively to make money. Comparing this to slots which is almost always up to chance and luck, sports betting like horse race betting and other things like this can be researched and bet on smartly. The most cautious financial advisors would suggest crypto investments compared to lottery tickets and slot machines.
Rules and Regulations
One of the issues of crypto is the lack of regulation for it. Cryptocurrency is essentially “fake” money that isn’t federal reserve money like how money is. A lot of trading platforms don’t have regulations at all so if you do get scammed you cannot get the money back to open a criminal case against them.
Gambling, however, is completely safe and regulated. There are worldwide regulations that control all types of gambling. So if you do get scammed on an online gambling site, you can open a case and get your money back.
Overall, we think that the opinion of this is completely subjective, you can think it is a form of gambling and think it isn’t and both can be completely valid. We think the risk of using money to make more money makes it a form of gambling.
