Saturday, November 15, 2014

Poll: Is the Gambling Industry Dying?

The following chart shows casino hotel employment. I have added a parabolic trend line in red for your consideration.


Click to enlarge.

Please vote in the poll! It can currently be found in the upper left hand corner of my blog.

I'm sure glad that's out of the way. I got my vote in early! Easiest... poll... ever! Oh, wait. What's this?

November 12, 2014
Forex Investors May Face $1 Billion Loss as Trade Site Vanishes

Since when is forex trading considered to be investing? For every dollar made by a trader, some other trader must lose a dollar. It's a zero-sum game. Further, there are transaction fees to consider. Say, this seems a lot like a hotel casino the more I think about it.

“Ninety percent of traders in forex end up losing money,” it said.

Do they at least get complimentary drinks?

“Every day, I saw they were making me profits,” Mandal says. “And then it’s suddenly gone. It gave me psychological pain and stress. I feel very embarrassed.”



Good grief! I need to change my vote in the poll! Oh, thank the heavens! Blogger lets me change it! If you feel the same, then for the love of all that is holy, change it now before someone notices the folly of our ways!

This post inspired by the comments of GDD9000 as seen at Calculated Risk.

Source Data:
BLS: CES Databases

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, wait, this poll is misleading... Are you counting "investors" as gamblers?

I'm not going to vote until I know what I'm voting for (unless it's political).

Stagflationary Mark said...

Anonymous,

Gambling is in the eye of the beholder! ;)

On the one hand, if you think that a lot of "investors" gamble, then yes, I would count a lot of "investors" as gamblers.

On the other hand, if you think that a lot of "investors" are guaranteed to make a lot of money no matter what they do, then no, I would not count a lot of "investors" as gamblers.

Your call! :)

Perhaps this will help.

Are You a Speculator or an Investor?

Forget the article. I refer you to the comments.

The stock market (especially the very liquid, high-volume stocks followed by dozens if not hundreds of anaysts) is essentially a random walk with a very discernible, long-term, upward bias. You are an investor if you are trying to capitalize on this upward bias. You are a speculator if you are trying to capitalize on short-term deviations from this trend. - Blogannath

That was met by a reply from someone else.

But if you zoom out, the long term up trend itself ends, in every market, every currency, every country. So by your definition, you are speculating that you are nearer the middle than the end. - Karl

Although Karl's answer seems extremely accurate over the ultra long-term, nobody seemed to like his answer or put much faith in it (at least so far). Go figure.

dearieme said...

The ad breaks in televised football (soccer) matches here are stuffed full of adverts for online gambling, urging you to get out your smartphone and make a bet. Of course, those firms may not employ many people.

Stagflationary Mark said...

dearieme,

November 14, 2014
NBA's Silver: Legalize sports gambling

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver became the first major sports executive to come out in favor of legalized sports gambling Friday.