Speculation

Speculation is a method for adjusting differences of opinion as to future values whether of products or of stocks. It regulates production by instantly advancing prices when there is scarcity, thereby stimulating production, and by depressing prices when there is overproduction." Clews's depiction of speculation might have come straight from the pages of a modern economics textbook.

H. C. Emery wrote that "whereas gambling consists in placing money on artificially created risks of some fortuitous event, speculation consists in assuming the inevitable economic risks of changes in value.

Samuel Johnson defined gambling as the redistribution of wealth without an intermediate good.