Gambling vs Investing

The obvious distinction between gambling and investing is that one relies soley on speculation and significant risk, while the other relies only partly on speculation and carried reduced risk.

The best differentiation between gambling and investing was made by Fred Schwed in his classic investment book, Where Are The Customer's Yatchs?, "[s]peculation is the attempt - probably unsuccessful - to try to make a little money into a lot. Investing is the effort - usually successful - of preventing a lot of money from becoming little."