This article, by Justin Baiocchi, was originally published in The Northern Daily Leader on 17 December 2016.

I read a book recently which told the story of a man who lived in Melbourne, working as a croupier at Crown Casino, and how he invested in the stock market. Spending that much time in a gambling den must have had an impact on his investment approach, which consisted solely of looking for a company with a share price close to $0.01 (a so-called ‘penny dreadful’), putting his entire life savings into the company and hoping for the best. On two occasions he managed to turn over a hundred thousand dollars into nearly a million, only to lose it all. On the third occasion (you’ve got to give him credit for being persistent) he tried the same approach, struck a winner and made nearly two million dollars in profit, enough to chuck in his croupier job and become a stay-at-home dad and fulltime investor.

Sounds great doesn’t it? A struggling everyday Joe strikes it rich through the share market and lives happily ever after. In reality however, this is the exception rather than the norm. As befitting his time spent in a casino, the hero of our rags-to-riches story was really doing nothing more than gambling. You could argue, statistically speaking at least, that he would have been better off to put his life savings on red at the roulette table and leave it there for a couple of spins. Certainly the odds of the roulette ball landing on red three times in a row are probably better than the likelihood of picking one company from the five thousand on offer on the stock market, and then watching it quadruple in value.

For most people, losing their entire life savings (twice!) is simply too much to bear, despite the allure of a potential massive payday. For every croupier-turned-millionaire there’s probably ten thousand ‘investors’ who’ve lost their shirt by mistaking the stock exchange for a casino. Undoubtedly there is a myriad of ways to make (and lose) money on the stock market. Betting your life savings on the roll of a dice may well be your thing; there’s also merger arbitrage, long/short pairs, rumourtrage, momentum investing and enhanced options trading strategies. It really is like one of those ‘Choose your own adventure’ books which made a brief appearance in the mid-nineties. For normal, sane and rational investors however, none of these methods are likely to leave you able to sleep at night. If a sound night’s sleep is important to you, an investment adviser can help; otherwise, I have a book I can lend you to help pass the hours.