William ChopsWestfield wrote:

>> But casino gaming is certainly not riskier than being an entrepreneur so
>> business is not less of a 'gamble' than craps.
> 
> Yes, it is.

Hm... You got me curious and I tried to find solid data. But that doesn't 
seem to be easy. One set of comparisons would be to compare the numbers of 
business bankruptcies per total number of businesses with the numbers of 
personal bankruptcies due to gambling per total number of gamblers in a 
given year. But I had trouble find clear data about personal bankruptcies 
that are due to gambling, and about total number of gamblers. 

So -- how would you substantiate that?

Here for example is some data to get started...
http://www.abiworld.org/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm?ContentID=18753


Intuitively, I'd say the casino gambling is relatively tightly regulated, 
the long-time odds of machines are mostly determined by law or otherwise 
known, the rules and probabilities of card games etc are well-known. 
Whereas being an entrepreneur... you basically have no certainties at all, 
not even reliable odds. Which seems to indicate that being entrepreneur is 
riskier.


>> The Stock Market is no less rigged against the small investor in favor
>> of the large than the slots are set to set to pay more to the house
>> than to the player. 
>>
> Yes, it is (LESS rigged)
> 
> These are exactly the sort of wrong assumptions/justifications that
> the "problem gambler" makes to justify their gambling

Or yours are the ones that the "problem investor" makes to justify their 
stock market gambling... Hasn't there been a wave of despair some years ago 
in the USA where many people lost pretty much all their (in some cases 
retirement) savings in the stock market?

Again, I'm not sure how to get solid data either way...

Gerhard

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