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The Stock Market is Always a Gamble

In the summer of 2005, many online casino companies went public on the London Stock Exchange, only to lose most of their stock earnings in late 2006. Does this mean that the story of online casino IPOs is a cautionary tale, or a reminder that no matter the IPO or stock, a singular world event that would normally only affect one country has the power to destroy stocks in another? You might have to throw away a few biases here before you answer this question, given its volatility as an issue these days.

The most correct answer applies to the latter of the two assertions. The stock market is quite like a casino, in that the odds are often against you. There are probably more factors, in fact, working against you as a company offering an IPO or stock over the long term than any factors working against a person gambling at any sort of casino. A company?s stock being wiped out because of some government?s decision doesn?t have to be a gambling company.

The point is, if you?re an entrepreneur or an investor, the chances of something going wrong are always there. What is important is that you?re flexible enough to deal with a blow and then make the changes necessary to the new reality and hope that what you do enables you to succeed. If investing and offering stocks is a gamble, it is important to remember than in gambling, sometimes you have to play more than one game to win.