The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that the TD Easy Trade app is a good way to invest if you are a finance rookie, care about minimizing fees or appreciate a quick, clean way to manage your portfolio on your smart phone. Guest columnist Rob Carrick writes, however, that a recent revamp of TD Easy Trade is problematic. In bumping up the number of free trades a year to 100 from 50, this app reinforces the idea that trading equals investing success. The truth is that trading a lot is like gambling, a once fringe activity that is malignantly forcing itself into the mainstream. Another example of gambling's emerging influence in the DIY investing world is seen in recent developments at Wealthsimple, Canada's foremost disruptor of big-bank dominance. Wealthsimple has received the go-ahead from securities regulators to offer a limited version of prediction trading to clients. This kind of offering would allow clients to bet on economic indicators, financial markets and climate trends. Prediction trading is a form of gambling, which can do to your finances what cigarettes do to your lungs. This is obvious, yet nothing can apparently stop gambling from gaining influence in the sporting world and now in finance.