A recent survey of one of the largest suppliers of online self-help treatments against gambling addictions has revealed the main reasons for patients seeking help. Somewhat surprisingly, partnership problems were the issue mentioned most often among people starting the therapy. Financial problems and debt were a close number two and fears of losing the job was at number three. Many gamblers who live in a relationship or in a marriage start lying to their partner. They try to hide their addiction and the dimensions of it. Usually, partners are deeply shocked when they discover the amount of debts involved with the addiction. This is often the moment when they decide to leave their partners. Gamblers hide their addiction because they are afraid of the partners’ reactions and because of feelings of guilt and shame. Confessing an addiction, obviously, is seen as a sign of weakness. When addicts look for help, it often happens after getting pressure from the partner. In many cases, the partners set an ultimatum – either a therapy or the end of the partnership. Gambling addictions also lead to a different type of problem in relationships. It’s common for the gambler to change character and become more aggressive, impatient, anxious and tired. All of these changes make it difficult to lead a harmonious partnership.

Financial problems and debt were another trigger for starting a treatment against gambling addictions. Either the gamblers have no access to money anymore and need to look for help or they recognize before that their life cannot continue like before. In many cases, gamblers lose many friends as the addiction proceeds. Often, they borrow money from friends and family and are never able to pay it back. Fears of losing their jobs were mentioned third most often as the reasons for looking for help. Gamblers change personality and often become less concentrated, less interested and more aggressive at work. In the survey, it was also mentioned that in many cases colleagues were asked for money, lunch time was used to gamble and in extreme cases online gambling was done from the computer at work, during working hours.

When addicts look for help and when they are motivated to change their lives and overcome the addiction, chances are excellent that they can break their problems. Partners and employers should be patient as relapses are common at first. However, support and understanding especially from friends and family are important for sustainable success. In good gambling addiction therapies, patients will recognize the underlying reasons for their addictions as well as the daily triggers for craving. With cognitive behavioral therapy, patients will learn how to deal differently with the urge to gamble and will set themselves new aims in life. Other parts of effective therapies include debt and money management, relaxation techniques and defining new aims in life. Relaxation techniques are important for addicts getting used to lower levels of excitement and finding relaxation through alternative sources. New aims in life need to be broken down into new, meaningful everyday activities.

A beginning trader who has no knowledge of the market has the tendency to jump straight into trading every time he opens the chart. I myself had experienced this when I started trading in the Forex market. Anyone could be tempted into trading right away because of the ease of using the Mt4/ Mt5 trading platform, you just to have to enter a position size and click either the bid or ask.

Forex is also open 24 hours and 5 days a week. Some brokers offer 24/7 and because of the tight competition of brokers, some even offers to let you open a trading account as low as $5. To some people, it’s just like a casino on your laptop, you will be able to place a bet anytime and everywhere you want. These are some reasons why most people thought trading is a form of gambling. Let’s try to discuss what are some pros on gambling, but cons in trading in order to clarify the difference between these two.

No. 1 Pros in Gambling – Requires No Analysis

In gambling, a gambler has no means of analysis in a game in order to have a better chance to win. You only get to place a bet and start gambling right away. That’s why you always have a 50/50 chance of probability in winning a game in gambling.

No. 1 Cons in Trading – Requires A Handful Of Analysis

In trading, You have two types of analysis, Fundamental and Technical analysis. In fundamental analysis, a trader must analyze the economy of a country, GDP, inflation, growth in jobs and the central bank’s interest. This requires a lot of time in order for a trader to make a decision to start a trade on a currency pair. This kind of analysis combined with technical analysis is always used by large institutions as they handle billions of dollars in their portfolio.

In technical analysis, traders use a chart as the main tool to analyze the market. This tool shows the historical graph of the price movement of a currency pair which shows some patterns to which where the price would possibly go. Within the chart are tools like price action, trend lines, Fibonacci retracement levels, indicators and etc., are combined to find the confluence zone (an area in the chart where indicators meet at a certain point) to further raise the probability of winning a trade. This kind of analysis is often used by retail traders. That’s why as a trader, you have to analyze first in order to have a better edge in the market and have a higher probability of winning a trade or else you will be like a gambler.

No. 2 Pros in Gambling – Requires No Patience

In gambling, you don’t need patience. Why? Games like poker, slot machine, and other casino games do not last for hours or days. You just watch the game for a few minutes and after it, you either win or loss.

No. 2 Cons in Trading – Requires a lot of Patience

Forex market is the most volatile market due to the high trading volume and liquidity, the prices move up or down in just a matter of seconds. People without patience won’t be able to stay in an open position for a long period of time. In trading, there are four styles of traders. Position traders which last for months up to few years, Swing traders which last for days up to a few weeks, Day traders which last for minutes up to a few hours, but does not hold any overnight positions and Scalp traders which only last for few seconds to a few minutes.

As a result, most beginning traders are likely to choose to be a scalp trader who scalps on the lower time frames like 1 minute or 5 minutes but has the highest chance of experiencing a market noise. Most of the time he will get stopped out if a news comes out. Traders without patience often close their position if the market starts to move against them even if their stop-loss has not been hit by the market price yet. When the price starts to continue on its trend, the trader will realize that if he only been patient enough, he should have gotten a better trade. That’s why trading requires a lot of patience in order to be a consistently profitable trader.

No. 3 Pros in Gambling – Only the poker game requires great Discipline

All games in gambling require a little discipline only for the game poker does not. In trading psychology, poker is always compared to trading. Professional poker players require a great discipline in order for them to be a consistent winner. Maybe if you want to be a gambler, I suggest that you should start a career in the game of poker. It has a higher probability of winning a game than the other casino games.

No. 3 Cons in Trading – Require Great Discipline

Great discipline is the hardest to achieve. Only a few people with a great willpower will be able to do it. Often times a trader plans his trade for a few hours, but later if someone tells him a good trade or he found a better trade, most of the time he will not trade what he had planned to trade. He will likely follow the one that he was advised to trade. Or if that trader has a system that requires him to only trade twice a day, even if those 2 trades are losses then he should not trade anymore.

But often times, when a trader loses a trade, he will most likely revenge on his next trade and will forget to follow his daily rules. If you want to be the successful trader like everyone dreams of, you really need to practice a great discipline. As the good ol’ pros always tell, “Plan your trade and trade your plan.”

To sum it up. Gambling is for those people who want to have a good time and has a lot of spare money to gamble with. While trading is for those people who are serious about making money and are disciplined enough to place a trade.

Gambling is something that many of us today cannot run away from. It has been in existence for thousands of years and is not about to go anywhere. Some even say that it is intrinsically linked to humanity itself meaning that gambling is well within our very own human nature.
Gambling is the wagering or money or anything else of value with the primary goal of winning a material object or money. The wager is often placed with the consciousness of the risk the gambler is taking. For gambling to take place, three elements must be present, which is the consideration or amount wagered; the risk and the prize. Today gambling has evolved into what is now looked at as modern day gaming and is even regulated in most countries and licensed by gaming authorities. It has truly become a, international commercial activity and is said to contribute millions to economies.
History
Gambling can be traced back to as early as before history was written or as early as 3000BC with the six sided dice. Its history can be traced to ancient China where betting on animals fighting was a common practice. It was not until the 10th century that lottos and domino games appeared in China and gambling started to take its shape. The popular games that we know today like poker appeared in the United States in the 17th Century and they say; the rest is really history.
When gambling became mechanized it became easier for the winnings to be regulated more accurately and for the odds to be in everyone’s favour. No more did people have to rely on the goodness of the betting houses since the machine basically determined the outcome.
Online Gambling/Gaming
The breakthrough for online gambling came in 1994 when Antigua and Barbuda passed the Free Trade and Processing Act into Law allowing the licensing of organizations applying to open casinos online. Between then and 1996 a number of laws were passed all of which were directed to online gambling and in 2003, the first live dealer casino was introduced.
Gaming today
The more technology has advanced, the more the gambling industry has also evolved with developments being made geared towards making the lie of the gamer much easier. Given how lucrative the gaming industry is and the fact that people actually like to play, many governments have had no choice but to allow gaming and only control the industry through licensing

A win at a gambling table can be fun narrating. The gambling is being popularized by word-of-mouth technique as there are many who have such success stories to share with the aspirants. These can be real fun but one has to actually win for getting started with such a story. Winning is not always easy. But experienced gamers do observe a lot and then sit on the table. Shuffle tracking etc. are the main techniques for winning a hand of poker. Poker and black jack are associated with tricks but still they are very popular among the people thus they are still played at all places.

Though a lot goes in to making a great gambler, but the contribution of the casinos and the internet is immense in making the game of gambling a global phenomena. The novelists have also taken this as their theme and written loads. Gamblers are always associated with glamour and glitterati. A gamblers life is one of a prince who decides to risk all the dough he has. That’s sheer extravagance. A lot of credit for the popularity of card games like poker and blackjack goes to the airing of tournaments of these as sports events. Before that poker and other card games were played in the stinky places.

With the advent of popular gambling, casinos have become the most sought after places for the gamblers. This has tremendously increased the flow of money toward he casino owners. People like Donald Trump, Steve Wynn have converted their estates into luxurious casino resorts and they are minting money with both hands. The concentration of such establishments is basically in Las Vegas, Nevada, but most of north America has casinos mushroomed all over it.

The movie-goers have also been greatly influenced by gambling plots put up in the films like The Cincinnati Kid, Rounders etc. It becomes such an influential film theme because of the fact that it has all possible glamour attached to it. The leads are shown always winning and getting envied by the bad guys. This also influences the not-so-stable minds of the viewers. Gambling in the rural and old background has also influenced a lot of literary luminaries. The likes of Fyodor Dostoevsky have written works like ‘The Gambler’ almost more then two centauries back.

Gambling has, since its legislation, has taken many different forms. There are lotteries and there are raffles. People call it charity and enjoy the benefits. This goes on to prove that the people are still treading on chance and through one way or another gambling is finding its followers.

Gambling it self sounds very scandalous and scandals are a part of gambling all the way. The techniques developed by the experienced gamblers over the years like shuffle tracking and card counting etc. have made the casino owners stay on guard. Breaking the hose advantage in the game of blackjack has been the aim of the many players. With timing and experience many have also succeeded in doing so. But the business is run on principles. The cops are behind the probable cheats and they are on the look out with the help of the casino owners.

Although gambling is a mixture of luck, crime, tricks and trade but still it attracts many customers from all strata of the American society. Gambling is now a way of life and as long as life goes on gambling will live along.