While there’s not much data supporting the idea yet, there’s a very good chance that the lines between investment and betting are blurring for a lot of young people these days. Thanks to mobile apps and affordable online services, as well as a whole new outlook on investment among millennials (and younger), people are taking personal finance into their own hands. And in doing so, they may just as easily expose themselves to high-risk practices as financially strategic ones.

To address this potential issue, we’re highlighting a few of the key differences between the two.

Level Of Difficulty

Investing successfully is not easy at all. However, it’s a fairly straightforward assertion to say that betting is harder. A surface level analysis indicates that the stock market is more forgiving than a casino or bookie, given that some more conservative and reliable methods of stock investment can pay back over 70% of the time. Of course there are multiple types of investing and multiple types of betting, so there are certainly exceptions. If the same person were to be very cavalier in the stock market and extremely conservative in sports betting, that person may make more money via the latter. For the most part though it’s actually quite clear that making money in betting is more difficult.

Available Platforms

When you invest in the stock market, you’re effectively joining the exact same market the rest of the world has access to – whether you do it through a broker, a website, or even one of the new apps that are becoming popular. With betting, this isn’t necessarily the situation. Every bookmaker is different and there are innumerable ones available both online and at in-person casinos and betting facilities. So we’ll put it this way: if Apple shares costs $220, they’re going to cost $220 everywhere. If Tiger Woods is a 10/1 favorite to win the Masters at one bookmaker though, he may be 12/1 at a different one. There’s just less consistency between platforms, which adds to the higher degree of difficulty.

Expertise At Hand

You can find a lot of bad advice for both investing and betting around the internet and even in books. However, the expertise at hand for investing tends to be more grounded in reality, whereas betting tips can be based largely on assumption. When you’re seeking advice on investment you can often view an expert’s track record, see any charts, patterns, and histories he or she may refer to, and assess the value of the advice. This is possible in sports betting to some extent, but it’s just as common to hear something like “Tom Brady’s been hot lately, so the Patriots should score a lot of point this weekend.” It may simply be that more people are comfortable acting like experts about sports than investing. As a result there is less reliable expertise available.

Games vs. Trades

While some enjoy the challenge of the stock market, there’s really nothing game-like about it. It’s serious business, though satisfying at times. This couldn’t be further from the truth with sports betting. You need only look at the different kinds of contests offered by daily fantasy sports sites to get a sense of entertainment. Despite the fact that real money is on the line, people can pick and choose contests based on the competition, the style of payout, and in an unspoken way, how fun they seem. Put more simply, people who bet on sports do it for fun as often as not