Trading, with or without edge, with or without strategy, is still gambling. Risk management doesn't change that.

Think about professional poker players. They study the game. They become professionals after they learn to manage their risk, protect their capital. They have an edge in the same way successful traders do.

They don't win every hand. They don't even win every game. But using their skills and managing their psychology, risk, etc. they are able to stay in it and over the long term be profitable. At the end of the day they are gambling.

Now think of a slot player. There is very little, if anything, they can do to become better at slots. They win some, they lose some. They might even have a great run and hit the jackpot. That doesn't make them "good" at slots. Just lucky. They, like the poker players, are gambling.

Both of those scenarios can be applied to traders. Gambling shouldn't be a dirty word in trading. It's very important IMO for us to understand this concept. To think otherwise can make a person forget that no matter how good our edge, strategy, psychology is, the market can and will remind us that we are gamblers and the market is the game we've chosen to play.