If you think that your chances are higher at roulette, good for you. Other people take other chances. A few more thoughts: - Maybe you don’t have to be THAT s

If you think that your chances are higher at roulette, good for you. Other people take other chances. A few more thoughts: - Maybe you don’t have to be THAT smart to beat the index. - Maybe you don’t have to be consistently good or right or lucky, but only once or twice, because money has a nonlinear utility. If you strike it big in your early thirties, you have a different life than if you consistently save up till 65. - Of course, gambling away your small investment in the beginning might give you less to compound over the years, which results in significant less money at age 65. - Maybe stock picking helps you better to stay invested during booms and busts. I have no answers to these questions and I’m in the process to figure things out for myself right now. However, buying puts on DAX and SPX in February 2020 made me a small fortune, which is now a very real house I just bought. YMMV