April 03, 2026 ·
The general phrase for financial markets in Hindi, Punjabi, and many Indic languages is satta bazaar, meaning gambling market. It comes as no surprise that finance and trading, specifically day trading, is commonly assumed to be professional gambling. The funny part is that this definition isn't actually entirely false, but it is self-fulfilling. Because one can indeed gamble in financial markets, so in some sense they can be treated as casinos...but only if one chooses. The point at which markets separate into gambling and not-gambling is the self. There's a path and mindset in which one may systematize their process and develop strategies etc., which in my opinion is what separates blind intuition-based-gambling from conjecture-based-investing or trading. But even there I've heard the criticism that it's just gambling with extra steps. I believe that view to be misleading and wrong; by someone who is yet to realize math and physics work in a load-bearing way.
All gambling is trading, but not vice-versa.
The assumption that financial markets are synonymous with gambling is often so deeply rooted that I have learnt over time not to try and change it, or even bring up for that matter. But someone somewhere in the chain of everyone's money is strategizing on ways to preserve it and make more of it. What people want to do is not appear uncouth about the whole thing and have the discussion tucked away from sight as they enjoy art and cucumber sandwiches or whatever. Discussing money is not classy and one must be obviously poor to be discussing it and strategizing about it. Your unemployed friend on a Tuesday afternoon type beat.
There's some truth to that assumption yet again which, again, aggregates at the self. Because day trading objectively is a terrible, degenerative profession. But the trouble in it is its high frequency, not the trading itself. Investing is a classier word for trading done at a much lower pace and frequency, so one must bias towards decreasing the frequency at which they make transactions in my personal opinion. But it's hilariously wrong to throw the baby out with the bathwater and claim all transactions are gambles; that's too far the other way.
A funny comment I once heard this professor say on a clip at X was that the difference between a trader and investment banker is that you'll never see a trader at the opera.
So don't be poor and trade. Be rich and invest.
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