If the person I am referring to had not gambled in online casinos and invested this amount of money in bitcoins, he would have made a substantial half profit today, even after paying off his debts. If he had bought 1 BTC and sold it now when the price of Bitcoin was twenty thousand dollars, he would have made a profit of about 25K dollars even though he had paid a loan of 18K dollars. The reason for sharing this incident of my local elder brother is to warn users about the dangers of gambling.
I don't owe you $18K so we may not understand it but the one I shared with understands how heavy the burden of debt is.
With hindsight it's always easy to make the best possible investment decisions, but we shouldn't be too hard on ourself. The past is gone, we can't bring it back and shouldn't be felling bad about it. We need to remain realistic, look towards the future and learn from our mistakes. For me there is a clear difference between money for saving, trading and investing, and money used for gambling. Investing is to build a large portfolio over time, save money for retirement and have money for emergencies. Gambling on the other hand is for entertainment, I am not going to mix the two and try to avoid thinking about missed opportunities. It's like calculating how much money I would have saved if I didn't go to restaurants and only prepare cheap meals at home. There will always be situations where we could have saved more and used that money differently. Now putting debt on top of everything things will be much worse. I would never use debt for gambling or investing, better to first save the money and spend it, not the other way round?
Gambling is short-term enjoyment, whereas investing is long-term growth. Yes, regretting "what could have been" is pointless. In money and life, hindsight can be appealing but deceiving. Despite its volatility, I support Bitcoin. Bitcoin, unlike gambling, is a new frontier in digital assets that could change monetary systems. This demands deep awareness and a willingness to take calculated risks, not blind gambles.
Your stand against gambling or speculative investing debt is wise. Financial decisions should be based on facts, not fantasy. Remember that our financial journey is as much about the pathways we dont take as the ones we do.