Just curious since the last discussion I had was about gambling vs trading. I know trading can seem to be a bit of a gamble as well, but I see it a little bit like poker. It's a combination of math and psychology. Maybe not the same ratio though, just generalizing
I have heard Wall Street guys are extreme risk takers; they gamble heavily. The difference is that Wall Street guys when trading do that largely with other peoples money.
I gamble and I trade; I feel same type of 'rush' by doing both, especially when trading with heavy leveraged futures, and in volatile markets (as they are now). Sure, I win some, I loose some, but so far, for the last few years, I am ending up more on the winning side. Both are true for Poker, and Trading, and in some cases, sportsbetting.
My trick for sportsbetting is that I have access to internal data, so I bet against the public money. For Poker, I look for weak tables, where it seems to be rookie players at the tables. In trading, I wait for a condition when i see the markets turning (i.e. overheated, way to high price), then take out a short. I then wait for a drop and see when the markets start to turn, and go long. So I maybe apply some of the same psychology: I wait for others to make a mistake and show their intentionm and then use a weakness of others to make a profit.
