Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

Is buying a lottery ticket considered an investment? 
Why must terms must be mutually exclusive?  This (false) dichotomy is what seems to cause the most debate.  It is the SINGLE EVENT OUTCOME that defines gambling. Gambling will involve an aleatory contract. That is, the outcome is specifically tied to a single event that determines profit/loss. This could be the outcome of a race or the roll of a dice, but should involve chance.  This is why gambling is often in the context of a game, but I would make the argument that some investment tools fall into this category - The price of a stock at a certain date, for example. This may also be called "betting", which opens up a whole other discussion. Investing has no such implication, and as such it is the broader term.  Investing is to put something (money) to work to return a profit. Some forms of gambling could fall under this umbrella. Some would say that is a "bad investment" and even if they are right, it may still be the desire and intent of the investor to make a profit.  Not all gambling falls under investing. You can gamble for pleasure.  The profit/loss of most investments are not contractually tied to a specific event or outcome (e.g. the price of a stock over 10 years is the result of many events affecting its market value). Such an investment would not be considered gambling.