> many people make several million dollars over their life time but see it as to high of a risk to put 10k into something that could go to zero but it also could go to 100k or even more. That does not make much sense. The question should not be "should I risk the 10k? The question should be "am I in a financial position that allows me to lose 10k?"

I see where you're trying to go by framing a loss against lifetime earnings, but I think that could lead some investors to mislead themselves. Someone who is willing to bet 10K on black at the roulette table is almost certainly going to gamble more than once in their lives. The question should be, "am I in a financial position that allows me to lose 10k right now, and can I trust myself to walk away from the table if I do lose?"

Obviously I didn't not attempt to cover ever possible case and personality you can think of that wasn't the goal anyway. Someone who gambles doesn't fall in the category of "risk intolerant" anyway. Beside that in "traditional" gambling the odds are against you so the whole risk/reward ration is out the window and "only a small lose over your whole lifetime" doesn't change this.

I would never encourage anyone to just trow money any anything that could potentially somehow give you more back. Roulette, lottery etc. are all statistically against you and you have zero way to choose clever or otherwise affect the outcome in your favor. Buying something with speculative value is completely different and it certainly is a good idea to actually inform yourself first about what yo buy. If you subjectively think the chance of loosing everything is over 50% I would look for something else after all the goal is to not lose so it should not be a blind throw it should just be something with high risk AND high reward.

I know someone who intentionally bough some rare apple device for like 1.1k. Fully aware that it might be worthless soon or break and loose most of its value. But it had a realist chance to gain value and it did, he sold it for over 10k 5 years later. Thats about +800% a risk/reward ration that does make sense.

"Betting 10K on black" was meant to be a metaphor for buying 10K of cryptocurrency. Just like there are professional cryptocurrency traders, there are professional gamblers, but everyone else playing the game is expected to lose money to the sharks.

The example you provide of purchasing a fragile collectible is similar; almost all collectibles (be they fine art, beanie babies, or NFTs) lose value, so purchasing one is very much a bet.

You can not professionally bet on black. What you think of as professional gamblers is probably something like poker that has nothing to do with a high risk/reward investment/speculation. Anyway you try really hard to not understand what I said so if you insist that high risk/reward means it must be gambling and the risk to loose everything must so much higher than winning anything then you simply dont know of any good opportunity. Might be side effect of dismissing everything at first sight. Either way I wont reply any further.

> but see it as to high of a risk to put 10k into something that could go to zero but it also could go to 100k or even more. That does not make much sense

You could walk into a betting shop and put 10k on all kinds of things that will most likely go to zero but have a finite probability of going to 100k or even more.

Q: How do you suggest determining the odds of success? Most of us can't invest in every 10k opportunity (and even if we did, we might not win out in the long run)

If the odds are obviously against you its not useful ofc. If you think there is a 50% chance you lose everything then you should also see a 50% chance that you make over 100% profit if that is not realistic its probably not the right thing.

> If the odds are obviously against you

Can you define "obviously"?

Spoiler, but for financial investments, there are no [genuine] odds. That's kind of my point about the efficient markets hypothesis.

For example, Tesla was at $88.60 on January 3, 2020. It's at $728 now (and peaked[?] at $1222-ish in November 2021].

Presumably there were not very many people who, in January 2020, thought Tesla would increase in value, or it wouldn't have been at $88.60 for very long.

Roulette is an example where the odds are against you and its obvious. Your chance to win in statistically lower than 50% and it should be higher than 50%.