When you’re a beginner in the world of gambling and betting, even though you may know what you want to do, you can get stuck before you even start due to the terminology. The popularity of gambling and betting is skyrocketing right now, thanks to the internet making the activity even more accessible. With more people than ever starting up at top UK casinos to claim a welcome bonus, we thought it best to give you a strong launch pad by finally explaining the differences between betting and gambling.
What is gambling?
The term ‘gambling’ refers to the activity of placing a wager on the outcome of an uncertain event, and so, there is always an element of risking a loss when gambling. Activities that are referred to as gambling in the modern day range from sports betting with an online bookmaker to playing games at an online casino, like slots and poker.
Gambling has been popular for centuries, evolving from two people betting against each other to the vast modern scene of online gambling. Its popularity has led to favoured gambling terms becoming commonplace in our day-to-day language, such as ‘poker face’ to describe an inscrutable look on one’s face or ‘crapshoot’ to indicate the unpredictability of a venture.
There are many different games and markets that come under the umbrella of gambling. On the one hand, you have games that are entirely random in their outcome and are mostly found at the casino, as is the case with roulette and slots. On the other hand, there are markets and games in which skill and knowledge can give you a bonus edge, such as in poker, blackjack, or sports betting.
In sports betting, the bookmaker will give odds reflective of the likelihood of each party’s success in the event, and you can use your knowledge of the sport to bet and win money. This is why some see buying stock as a form of gambling as people invest money based on their knowledge of an industry, but as stocks can fall or rise, there is an element of risk.
What is betting?
In essence, all gambling requires you to place a bet. Be it the coin that you put into a slot machine or placing a wager on a horse, you cannot partake in gambling without the placing of a bet. People using betting terms will refer to this as ‘action,’ which is effectively a form of slang to state that you have bet money on something.
There is a point, however, when placing a bet is no longer gambling. For an activity to be gambling, there needs to be an element of risk based on probability, but if you can place a wager which is a ‘sure thing’ or guaranteed to win, some would say that it’s not a gamble.
Essentially, gambling is the activity
