Is there any difference between a quant who goes to Wall Street and one who goes to Vegas? There are two schools of thought on this question. The first school argues that there is little meaningful difference between most investing and most gambling, and therefore i nvestors don't deserve an extra dol lop of sanctimony and grandeur; in fact, they need to be cut down to size and labeled for what they are: Glorified gamblers. The second school argues that investing differs in kind (and not just in degree) from gambling, and this difference carries moral weight because investors benefit society by producing a net gain in social value, whereas gamblers compete in zero-sum games among players (or negative sum games once we factor the cut given to the house). An investor improves the world. A gambler may improve his own world, but he leaves the outside world unchanged.
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