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Spinach or Investment, that is the question.
The highest realm of gambling: having the mentality of gambling in your eyes but not in your heart. With a calm mindset and an investment philosophy in mind, gambling becomes a high-return business. Because business involves expenses upfront, so in gambling, you should be prepared to lose first. The mindset for doing business is to invest first, so the mindset for gambling should naturally be prepared to lose first. Only by maintaining the mentality that "losing is winning," can you truly win and potentially earn significant profits. The truth of gambling is that you should be willing to lose first!
Imagine the funds you bring to the casino as necessary expenses for your company. For example, if you were opening a restaurant, your rent, utilities, wages, transportation costs, etc., would still need to be paid even if you didn't make any sales or were closed for the day. With this premise in mind, divide your money into 30 portions (simulating a month of operating expenses for your company, with necessary daily or hourly expenditures).
Suppose you're investing 30,000 units, and each time you go to the casino, you bring 1,000 units. When you arrive at the casino, you should first think that you have already earned back your initial expenditure of 1,000 units (consider your own funds as necessary expenses). At this point, your mindset should be to consider whatever you win as profit, whether it's 100 units or 1,000 units. In general, if you win 500 units at any time, you should leave. You can participate in gambling several times a day, and if you happen to lose 1,000 units during any of those times, treat it as a necessary expense for your company, accept the loss, and leave immediately.
1. By thinking of the 1,000 units as a necessary expense, you avoid the temptation to go back for more money after a loss. Once you fail to recoup your losses, you risk losing both your principal and profits (natural stop-loss).
2. When you arrive at the casino thinking that you haven't lost because you've already earned back 1,000 units, it stabilizes your mindset and prevents the "greed" factor from affecting you. (You can calmly reap your gains.)
Only by adhering to these two principles can you maintain a positive mindset and avoid significant losses. The money of regular gamblers is not necessarily lost while gambling; it's often lost when they continue betting after a losing streak. Remember: Those who frequently take risks will eventually lose. Winning and losing are relative, and the correct approach is to treat money as a form of capital and gambling as an art. Stick to the principles, avoid the dimension of losing, and break free from gambling by transforming it into work, following discipline, and applying an investment mindset.
Gambling is a high-risk form of entertainment. Over the years, many gamblers have enthusiastically participated, but few have ultimately made a profit. More than 90% of gamblers end up failing, some even losing significantly. Consequently, people tend to view gambling as a personal activity disconnected from the socio-economic sphere. Therefore, most people find it challenging to recognize gambling as an investment activity because it is characterized by high risk and lacks rational money management. People usually don't associate such speculative behavior with investments.
In fact, this has been a long-standing misunderstanding of gambling behavior. Gambling shares many similarities with stocks, securities, and futures to some extent. The key difference is that gambling's returns are much more closely tied to individual control. Moreover, traditional investments are more closely linked to the economic, military, and corporate operating environment. If we can set aside these factors and view the fluctuation of chips in gambling as similar to the curve of stock or futures indices, we will find common ground. The curve fluctuates over time, offering opportunities for investors. Stock and futures indices have longer periods of significant volatility, which means fewer opportunities to profit. A bear market may require waiting for several years to turn around. In contrast, gambling is different; it provides opportunities for profit in a matter of seconds.
So, why do most gamblers end up losing, while stock investors often achieve their expected returns? The main reason is that gambling, as a time-compressed investment activity, is extremely challenging to control. Casinos not only use favorable rules but also exploit human weaknesses. The so-called gambling nature is actually a refusal to lose, and this refusal to lose leads to an unwillingness to accept anything other than winning. It's a form of paranoia: 'I must win, or else.' When everything is going well, this mindset doesn't cause much harm, but when a losing streak occurs, players tend to increase their bets to seek revenge against the casino. The result is that what was won over a long time can quickly turn to ashes. Moreover, many gamblers completely lose their capital. In their minds, there's no longer a sense of 'risk' or a 'stop-loss' concept. Gamblers usually lack long-term goals and strategies, fail to recognize and manage risk diversification, act too impulsively, and often harbor thoughts of luck and greed. In contrast, successful stock investors have clear long-term, medium-term, and short-term goals, risk diversification awareness and strategies, and a willingness to wait for the right time to reap profits.
Gamblers often lack financial planning and profit planning. When they're winning, they believe their initial capital can infinitely expand, and when they're losing, they refuse to stop and imagine they can recover their losses with a few more hands. This ultimately leads to complete financial ruin. On the other hand, successful stock investors typically analyze market trends effectively, set corresponding profit goals, and predefine amplitude limits for short-term investments. They diversify their investments across different types of stocks and patiently wait for profit opportunities to arise.
For thousands of years, the casino has always had the last laugh. This fact tells us that no matter how advanced the techniques and strategies are, they can't guarantee ultimate victory. To change this reality, merely relying on gambling is insufficient. You must change the gambling mindset into an investment philosophy, using a similar approach to short-term stock investments, accumulating small wins into big victories to achieve the goal of guaranteed success in the long run.
In fact, some experts have long proposed adopting an investment mindset in the casino. The book 'Guaranteed Win in Long-Term Gambling' already hints at an investment philosophy, albeit with demanding psychological requirements that are difficult to meet. It also lacks specific strategies and methods. Here, we can make it more explicit and concrete. |
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