Binary options: Gambling vs. investment debate

There are many who consider binary options a form of gambling because of the unpredictability of binary options.

“The sites appeal to the same type of people who play poker online. But they somehow have an aura of being more respectable because they represent themselves as offering a form of investing. Don’t kid yourself.”
-Forbes

However every type of investment has a degree of unpredictability and an inherent risk. Even if you diversify your investment portfolio you can not eliminate the inherent risk of the market.

Yes binary options are unpredictable but so is Forex trading and buying/selling stocks . Are they gambling as well? What is the difference between gambling and investment? What risk is acceptable? How predictable a form of investment needs to be to be considered investment and not gambling?

Some argue, that the main difference between gambling and investment is that you are guaranteed to lose long-term while gambling and guaranteed to gain some money investing.

This logic is wrong on many counts. Every type of investment has risk, therefore it is not guaranteed that you will gain anything long-term.

Not to mention you just have to think of the recent 2007 recession to know how unpredictable the markets are and how quickly you can lose everything.

As for gambling there is no house edge in all of the games (i.e.: poker, tournaments, professional gambling) so it is entirely not true, that you necessarily have to lose long-term.
Also there are the advantage gambling methods, which means if you are patient and have what it takes you can eliminate the house edge entirely and guaranteed to win long-term (just think of card counting, the MIT blackjack team).

So what’s the difference between gambling and investment? Are binary options a form of gambling or investment?

The truth is none knows for sure. This is an open question and you are free to decide for yourself.

Even the government is unsure what to make of binary options: in some countries they are classified as gambling and in many they are governed by the some rules as any other form of investment.
Are there working, reliable binary option strategies to make money trading binary options?

No. Some binary option bloggers/websites claim that their method is guaranteed to work :

“buy our e-book with guaranteed working methods to make $ 1500 per hour with binary options!”

You probably have already seen these ads.
Truth is: there are no strategies guaranteed to work every time and these people only want your money.

Stay away from these scammers!

Binary options trading is unpredictable and risky but you can make a lot of money (or lose a lot of money) you only need to know the basics of binary options trading and you are ready to trade, the rest is only speculation and so called “advanced binary options trading strategies”, “binary options trading secrets” are purely promotional and speculative.
You can be sure they want your money if they throw around words like that.

Are binary options for you?

If you like fast-paced investment, where you don’t have to wait years till you can see some results and you thrive in a high-risk, high-gain environment, then binary options might be for you.

Don’t worry you can learn everything about binary options by playing around with a demo account so you won’t lose any money while learning the basics.