... sounds derogatory coming from some people. Surprisingly, I want to agree with them now, so let's take a closer look. In a casino, you have different types of people, such as professional card players who play Black Jack. These players know their game well and are able to earn good money in an evening because they know when to bet (estimate the odds) or even how to count cards (information advantage). This is actually similar to investors who know one smaller industry well. These local pros play on their small field, legally earning money from a system they know well and from which they make good money. Then you have poker players, who, in addition to the game, must also be good at assessing their surroundings. This, too, is a parallel to investment strategy in a way. If you are good at it, you can repeatedly generate short-term profits. These are more advanced professionals who make money by outplaying others simply by reading the situation better.
It will work out somehow
However, a large proportion of people in casinos are members of the general public (laypeople) who are simply trying their luck, and whether they win or lose is determined by chance. In the context of financial markets, these are inexperienced and uninformed investors. Such people typically invest in individual stocks or bonds based on gut feeling and simply hope for the best. Then there are the more sophisticated ones. These are the ones who wait at the slot machines, for example, and when they see that no one has won for a long time, they sit down and hope that the odds are now in their favor. These opportunists can make hundreds of times their investment with minimal effort just by seizing the moment. It may work, but often it doesn't. So what can we learn from this? If you want to invest, you can become a pro in a certain area (like Blackjack or Poker players), but that takes a lot of practice, knowledge (like reading reports), and sometimes other stuff too. Or you can trust your luck, and you might really get lucky, or your bet might not work out. That's just how life is. Or you can 'get around' it and buy a share in a casino that includes all games. So it may happen that one day the casino loses a little money because of a few lucky players, or that more professionals gather at Black Jack and completely rob the croupier. But you know that in the long run, the casino as a whole will make money, and so will you. You don't have to worry about when and how much to bet. Mutual funds work on this principle. They include hundreds to thousands of companies, so you don't care if a few games aren't doing well for a while. You're not betting on individual companies, but on the market moving forward, in other words, you're diversifying. Maybe the comparison to a casino isn't so far-fetched after all.
