this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
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Its like gambling, I bet 100 bucks something will happen to my car this month. Damn nothing happened, lost again.
Except you know legally required.
Forced. And raped.
It's not gambling, it's risk aversion. They are not the same. It's assuring you're protected from harm by distributing out the costs in case of harm, that any individual couldn't handle.
Gambling the goal is to get money. Insurance the goal is distributed liability so that possible danger will not bankrupt you. You still often can not come out ahead with an insurance payout, but hopefully won't come out bankrupt.
That's part of why medical insurance is so bad these days is because it doesn't even prevent that. But it's still an insurance, and not one that you want paying out.
Hell, not all insurance is even monetary --conceptually, saving grain silos for drought and famine is still insurance.
Actually, insurance is like gambling, your goal is just to loose, not to win. Lloyds, the world's first and foremost insurance company started as a London coffee house where rich aristocrats met and bet on the return of ships. This was the pure gambling stage. Merchants soon started to bet that their own ship won't return and the rest is history.
Thats a really dumb analogy.
You could frame anything involving risk as "gambling".
In gambling you potentially profit from risking losses. With insurance you pay to mitigate your risk. Not really similar at all.
So you think getting cancer and having your medical bills paid is winning? Because that's one form of insurance. Sure, if you get into certain types, it can be closer to gambling. But it can be further or closer
Yes. In this framing, where the goal is to lose the bet, getting cancer is winning. Winning the bet is a bad thing.
Sort of – you loose health and win money. It's definitively a win compared to getting cancer and not being able to get treatment.