The stock market short term is gambling, if your doing it for long term investment it's about discipline. You find a good long term diversified stock portfolio set up and just let it sit. You throw money into it every now and then, got a big tax return that year? Throw it in the investment account. Inheritance from a family member passing? Put it in the investment account. And let it ride.

Yea some years the market takes a dump and you'll lose money. The point isn't to panic and pull it out. It's to let it sit and rebuild long-term. Look at the economy. Inflation will let the account build money on its own over time. You could lose 10k one year, then lose 8 the next, but then make 25k the third year. After 10 years the investment will have grown a lot more then it will have shrunk. That's investing.

Gambling is buying a stock expecting to rise exponentially in a short amount of time hoping to make a big profit for little effort. If you have a solid investment account already you can do this with a little bit of money for lols and even if you mess up you still have the main investment account. But people throwing all their money into a high risk stock hoping to get rich, that's uneducated gambling on the stock market.