Great points regarding stock market.
Inspirational post Tensplitter. Have the results you speak of been experienced, or close to that, first hand? This would have been a nice response to a post submitted not too long ago on the forum about playing blackjack full time.
This is also a response I was seeking on a post under "Other Games”, “Blackjack vs. stock market" on this forum. I've always had thoughts about the great points you stated for drawbacks on market investing. Time invested looking at portfolio, time spent on stock market strategies that may not pan out due to uncontrollable factors in the market, reading market journals, watching CNBC, tax implications, unable to touch entire bankroll as it’s locked up sitting in the market. Many factors to look at, whereas blackjack is focused on mathematical advantage, and that’s it.
Naturally, we are taught to invest in the market opposed to gambling in casinos for good reason for the average individual. However, if you do the research, put in the time and discipline, one can become an advantage player, but is not preached in the everyday media.
Personally have took a huge negative swing in stock market before rebounding, basically to a little over breakeven point(after adjusting for inflation). Would have been better to use, even just a fraction of, the market investment to experiment in blackjack years ago. As you stated, I believe the time would have been more rewarding at blackjack than trading stocks.
Man, if even only half of the above results could be personally obtained, I’d look to dropping the full-time day job to part-time (as backup for constant income), and play blackjack part-time.