"Currently published in Toyo Keizai ONLINE" The boundary between fraud, gambling, and investment

Good morning, this is Matsushita.

Right now, on the internet news,

I read about a fraud case related to aluminum trading.

The case involved companies without real trading activities,

who enticed people by saying, "Aluminum prices are rising and you will absolutely not lose,"

and hundreds of people nationwide were harmed.

Investment-related scams continue as usual,

and the same classic phrase remains unacceptable:

"You will not lose."

For anyone who engages in investing,

there is no investment where you never lose,

and if you study a little more, when you hear that phrase,

you realize that the operator or the person in charge is breaking the law,

but unfortunately if you don’t know,

you may fall for sweet words.

After reading this news,

I have organized the differences between fraud, gambling, and investing.

First, fraud is,

as you can see in the above example,

the user thinks, "I will absolutely not lose."

And then they lose.

"I will use it thinking I won’t lose."

This is fraud.

Ultimately, you will lose.

Next is gambling.

In typical gambling, risks and returns

cannot be measured.

Whether you lose or gain depends on trying it out.

It's mostly left to luck.

Another hallmark of gambling is that

the operator charges a large overhead (fees),

putting participants at a significant disadvantage.

Winning at a casino means

the casino’s own company is the one making the money.

"You don’t know whether you’ll gain or lose.

You are overwhelmingly disadvantaged and leaving it to luck."

This is gambling.

And you will lose in the end.

Finally, investment.

Real investment can measure risks and returns to some extent.

Even if you know you might lose,

if you can confirm profits that exceed that, you’ll tolerate the risk.

This is investing.

If you can elevate your level to this point of investing,

you can win in investing.

After reading this far, the stocks or forex you struggle with daily, is it fraud, gambling, or investing?

If you think you’ve fallen for fraud,

please stop immediately.

Let’s endeavor to minimize the amount of damage.

If you think you’re gambling,

carefully consider how far you will continue to rely on luck.

If you want to rise from fraud or gambling to the level of investing,

let’s become able to clearly identify the risks.

Next, let’s be able to verify the returns.

If both are tolerable,

let's begin with trial and error.

Your daily trades, are they fraud, gambling, or investing?

Please think about it for a moment.

Some forms of gambling are known to be capable of reaching investing levels

sufficiently.

In my 49 years of life, I’ve met only once someone who had engaged in such gambling.

That person had made an enormous amount of money in their twenties. (lol)