Without the background education "gambling" is a better term than "play" although they both amount to the same thing.

This in itself should bring the value of the property from $5,600,000 to $7,200,000 (and this is considering a more conservative exit cap rate of 100 bp above the enter one), so at the end of the day the increased value would make the investment IRR in the 15-20%.I have a considerable amount of my portfolio in the stock market and believe me, no 2.5% dividend yield stock is going to deliver that performance over the next few years, especially considering the current inflated P/E ratios in the market, unless we gamble on ridiculous appreciation, so I fail to see how your comparison is fair.

Home warranties are basically gambling that you will at some point you will collect on it and hopefully it will cover the repairs without costing you too much.

I have a fraudulent lien (via deed of trust) on the title of my property from a company that was supposedly helping homeowners refi during the 2008-2011 downturn.  

I think taking the risk and riding the AirBnB wave it's hot is probably worth the gamble..

I’m especially curious because a few rentals were picked up by investors in my area at well over 25% above last year’s comps and I can’t help but wonder if they’re gambling on near term rent increases....or if they’ve just overlevered their way into non performing assets because of fomo.  

We used to have the bank account information available to our tenants until a tenants "friend " got the account info and started having fraudulent transactions pass through the account.

Yes you still need insurance but that is your only form of protection you are gambling.

Knowledge is power, speculation is gambling!!

Since I don't gamble, I guess this is how I get my kicks!