Why Forex trading is not gambling (2024)

Article Summary

• Forex trading vs. gambling: Forex trading may appear similar to gambling, but there are key differences. While gambling relies on chance and randomness, forex traders can use strategies and tools to tilt the odds in their favour.
• Importance of self-control: Successful forex trading requires discipline and self-control. Traders need to plan their trades, avoid greed, and follow a trading plan to increase their chances of profitability.
• Technical and fundamental analysis: Forex trading involves analyzing past price movements (technical analysis) and considering economic indicators (fundamental analysis) to make informed trading decisions. These approaches help minimize randomness and differentiate forex trading from gambling.

Is forex trading a gambling act or a legitimate investment opportunity?

Many people ask this question. When people start trading forex, their goal is to get as much payout as possible from trading and turn their initial deposit amount into a huge account balance.

For many people, forex trading is nothing more than gambling. This is because when you take a position on a particular currency pair, you are essentially betting that the price will go up or down by going long or short. So, is forex trading just a form of gambling?

Well, for an uneducated or inexperienced forex trader, it’s easy to come to this conclusion, especially if you start looking at the charts of currency pairs and how they seemingly move at random. It seems to me that there is.

This is perfectly reasonable, but it can easily lead to greed. When traders are looking for money, they lose money. If traders try to trade in the right way, they will get a profit.

Out of greed, traders tend to take blind risks instead of calculating every move. This is the main reason why some people associate gambling with forex. In gambling, chance and randomness are the underlying forces of any game

However, even in this sense, there is a big difference between gambling and Forex trading, and the difference lies in probability. When it comes to gambling, the house is always one step ahead of the player and wins in the long run by using the odds to their advantage, but FX has no home.

Instead, the trader is a ‘home’ to himself and can use a variety of techniques to tip the odds in his favour.

Unlike gambling, forex trading does not have a “house”. Your competitor in the market is another trader with its interests. Moreover, not all market participants are interested in making money.

The list of Forex market participants includes commercial banks, central banks, individual traders and institutional investors, governments, multinational corporations, etc. Multinational corporations do not care about losses incurred when exchanging currencies. They operate in multiple countries and require different currencies, so they trade currencies as needed.

The UK government also stated that gambling addicts frequently encountered serious financial hardships and debt. According to several studies, gambling can result in insolvency and housing issues, including homelessness. Children of gamblers suffered financial harm as well.

When it comes to trading, you are your own worst enemy

To profit from trading, you need to plan your trades and create a trading plan. Before making a decision, you need to think twice before giving in to greed. Self-control is very important for profitable trading.

Forex trading apps integrate technical analysis into trading. Using this method, traders can minimize the randomness of their trading and further clarify the difference between forex and gambling.

Technical analysis allows you to observe and analyze past price movements and infer the market’s direction. Many technical indicators allow this.

Traders can also use a fundamental approach by adopting various economic indicators. Using this strategy, a trader can observe the current state of a company, market, or country, gauge its strength, and determine whether the price of an asset will rise, fall, or stay the same.

The difference between forex and gambling is that traders are deliberately put in a bad position by the market rather than passively participating in the process. Various strategies and tools allow traders to turn the odds in their favour, stay ahead of the market, and grow their trading balances.

It’s also important to note that there are consistently profitable forex traders that can’t be said about gamblers.