For me investment is better than gambling the reason is I am not that much lucky and the second reason is I have not that much experience to gamble. The gambler are very experienced person and they are entirely skilled related to gambling sometimes they fail but many times they win the games by their experience.
I could not say that investment is better than gambling, because it depends on where you are going to invest your money, but I think you are thinking about those HYIP sites out there which you think that are legit, well let me said this, they are not, they are just good in the first place, but once they have knew that there are lots of people who invested on their site already, then they are going to vanish in an instant.
So, it is not safe after all, but if you are going to put your money in bitcoin, then I could say yes, because you can guarantee yourself that you could something in return in the long run.