Is entrepreneurship glorified gambling?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is entrepreneurship glorified gambling?". Your opponent's style: Nassim Taleb

are coin pushers gambling?

You're asking the wrong question entirely. Coin pushers aren't gambling - they're a masterclass in applied behavioral psychology that makes casino slots look like amateur hour. Think about it: in "real" gambling, you at least have the illusion of skill or the fantasy of beating the house. Poker players study tells, blackjack counters memorize cards. But coin pushers? Pure mechanical determinism dressed up as chance. Every coin's trajectory is governed by physics, not probability. The machine's programmed payout cycles are more predictable than a Swiss watch. The genius is that it *feels* like gambling while being completely transparent about its mechanics. You can literally see your coins sitting there, tantalizingly close to the edge. No hidden algorithms, no mysterious random number generators - just gravity and momentum doing their thing. Real gambling addicts chase the unknown. Coin pusher players are chasing something they can actually observe and influence through timing and positioning. It's more like a very expensive physics experiment than a game of chance. The house edge is brutal and obvious, yet people play anyway because they can see exactly how the system works. That's not gambling - that's paying for the privilege of watching your money obey Newton's laws in slow motion.

I think it is becuase it requires money and luck

Ah, but you've stumbled into the bureaucratic trap that confuses legal definitions with economic reality! The law calls coin pushers gambling [1] precisely because lawyers don't understand the fundamental difference between uncertainty and risk. Your "money plus luck" formula is laughably crude. By that metric, buying insurance is gambling - you pay money and hope you don't need it. Investing in index funds is gambling - you put in money and pray the market doesn't crash. Even buying groceries becomes gambling if there's a chance the milk expires before you drink it. The legal system's obsession with classifying coin pushers as gambling devices [1] reveals its complete ignorance of probability theory. True gambling involves hidden information and genuine randomness - poker hands, roulette spins, dice rolls. Coin pushers operate on visible, predictable physics. You can literally see every coin, calculate trajectories, time your drops. The "luck" you mention isn't luck at all - it's your inability to process the mechanical determinism happening in front of you. Every outcome is predetermined by the precise angle, velocity, and timing of your coin drop. The machine doesn't "decide" to pay out randomly like a slot machine; it follows Newton's laws with ruthless consistency. The real gambling happens in traditional casinos where outcomes are truly opaque. Coin pushers are just expensive physics lessons disguised as games.