Judged one year at a time, the stock market can look like a casino. Large U.S. stocks, measured by the S&P 500 with dividends included, lost money in 26 of the 98 years from 1928 through 2025, according to year-by-year returns compiled by NYU Stern professor Aswath Damodaran.
Over all 98 years, though, they returned about 10% a year before inflation, because the companies behind them earn profits, pay part out as dividends, and reinvest the rest to grow. Holding longer is what makes the gain dependable. With dividends reinvested and before inflation, every 20-year stretch in the data, all 79 of them, ended with a gain. The worst, 1929 through 1948, still turned $1,000 into about $1,600.
At the roulette table, time works against you. On an American wheel, the house keeps about 5.26% of the money bet on red, according to Britannica, so a $1,000 bet there loses about $53 on average. The more spins you play, the closer your results get to losing 5.26% of everything you bet.
The line between investing and gambling is where the payoff comes from. Investing pays you from the profits that companies earn over years. A broad index fund owns hundreds of those companies at once by holding every stock in an index such as the S&P 500.
A bet on next week’s price or on a single hot stock is gambling, because it pays only if the price moves your way in time. So is buying options that expire in days, contracts that become worthless unless the stock passes a set price by then.
If you want to place those bets, use only money you could lose entirely, cap it at 5% of what you invest, and keep it in a separate account. Count any crypto you buy in that slice too.
Put everything else you invest in a broad index fund, and don’t sell it in the losing years, since every one of those 79 stretches had at least two.
Compare the best online brokers to pick where to buy that fund.
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