I didn't know dick about stocks or investing until I went to GE (people talked about the GE stock then like they talk about Tom Brady and Trump today), and even then I didn't get the gist until I got my MBA. I still don't know the day-to-day in's-and-out's, but I know more than enough.
It's shocking and startling how little people know about stocks, their purpose, their trading, and what the various indicators mean. When it starts to impact decision-making (and it does) it borders on embarrassing. As a general proposition the sale/trade of stocks is not gambling, even though there is uncertainty, though day-trading is straight up gambling, and like with casinos, there IS a house (there is a reason - actually multiple ones, and this is one of them - that long-term capital gains are taxed differently, lower, than short-term capital gains).
I'm going to go a little too far out on a limb for this thread, maybe, but suffice to say, there are those (hint: I'm not talking about the usual suspects here, THE RICH, THE BILLIONAIRES, or THE TRADING HOUSES) that want and need us to stay relatively uninformed about how the stock market works. Lack of knowledge facilitates the victim culture.