Introduction

Some people are dealing betting and gambling investments the same way as if they were acquiring or selling stocks and shares in the international finance markets. Why do people believe that? Maybe just because it this believing gives an air of respectability to their betting and gambling or probably for some of them it is a real 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 a profit on that investment instead of making a loss. So, why are some types of monetary risks seen as acceptable whilst others are not?

Respectability of business investments

Stocks and shares are safe investments – everyone knows that. The thought of anyone losing money because they’ve been caught up in a ‘scam’ to defraud people is ridiculous -right? No, that is wrong, of course! Especially now, taking the financial crises into, there have been numerous 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. That someone has taken money off other people for stocks and shares that don’t actually exist has been just one of the of the pitfalls of stocks and shares occurring in the news. Statements like “the deal was too good to be missed” or “it seemed a quick way to make some money” are commonplace when you read the details of reports about people that have been defrauded. 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. These people were ‘addicted’ to what they were doing and therefore unable to stop themselves. Currently the financial industry is not able to maintain a respectable face anymore.

Respectability and monetary risk

The question: “Is it right that one is seen as respectable and the other not?”, is summarizing for the above two points. Anyone seeking to make a monetary profit by speculating is putting their money at risk. It really doesn’t matter whether you invest money in an insurance company or place a bet on a horse race. On the one hand 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. Alternatively the horse might win, on the other it might fall or it might have been drugged.
Whether sporting or business - an investment will always be a risk!