🇵🇱 Is Poland a country of gamblers, not investors? 🤡

💸 Data for 2024 was still available in the middle of this year, but the topic somehow passed by.

‼️69 BILLION PLN – this is how much Poles bet in total on Totalizator games (Lotto, scratch cards, casino) in ONE year. In the online casino alone (Total Casino), the turnover amounted to 50.6 billion PLN.

For comparison, do you know how much the turnover of individual investors on the Warsaw Stock Exchange was in 2024? 📉 43.1 billion PLN. (331.4 billion PLN - total turnover, 13% are retail investors)

Yes. Virtual roulette and slots are smoother in Poland than the capital market of individual investors. It turns out we prefer to "spin the wheel" rather than buy shares in businesses.

But this comparison hurts the most:

‼️We spend on gambling in 1 year: ~69 billion PLN.

‼️ We saved in the Employee Capital Plans over 5-6 years: ~41-42 billion PLN (data from mid-2025).

We burn almost 2 times more annually than we have saved in the national pension program.

🌍 USA vs ME: In the USA, there is even greater involvement in lotteries, casinos, etc. among citizens BUT 👇

62% of US citizens own stocks.

In Poland? About 4-5% of us have brokerage accounts.

Masters at buying dreams of the "life-changing strike," yet fearful of the "risk" of systematic wealth accumulation.

Does anyone still say that the stock market is a casino?

The stock market is boring accounting in comparison.😁