This is a misleading judgment the expectations out of the stock market being that the investments produce money generally speaking are expectation positive. Gambling is expectation negative always. That's the defining difference in my opinion.

Can you lose money in both absolutely but only actual investments have historically positive expectations. The stock market has had net growth of 7%+ on average in the last 100 years. Gambling has not increased the gamblers pockets at all its only shrunk there pockets