Legal Gambling
November 9th, 2006 by Ian
We all know about online gambling being banned not long ago shutting huge huge poker, sports betting, and other casino sites. What some don’t realize is how great gambling really is for society. The ‘big board’ is the biggest casino on the planet. With futures you can bet not just on crops and how much a live cow will be worth in months to come, but you can “invest” in weather!?! Okay, you can hedge out dramatic temperature changes when growing crops, but buying and selling the snowfall in New York or Boston? There are some road plowing guys that drive pickup trucks with a blade on the front that whose income may swing a few thousand based on snowfall, but come on, this is just flat out gambling; and I see nothing wrong with it.
Now on to the more interesting news of late. Did you know it’s legal to bet on the winner of elections in the United States? The SEC said that because it provides research it is ok. The interesting thing is, they are right. The markets (bookies) are more accurate than the “analysts” and “experts”.
Where does the line between gambling and investing stop? Is a foreign exchange trader with money leveraged at 200:1 where a .5% move can wipe out or double his account in few minutes really investing comparing to a sports follower who calculates the number of wins in a season a baseball team will have based on complex math? I think not.
