@glatt
It's really a lot closer to mining than it is to gambling. Gambling has a known input and a known chance (mostly). Bitcoin mining is like mining for gold in that a desired endpoint is sought and the work done to reach that known goal starts in some direction/with some intial numeric input. Gold miners dig dig dig and then either hit a nugget or they quit and start a new dig in a different direction. Bitcoin miners calc calc calc and either hit a target hash that is validated by the blockchain network (nugget!) or someone else hits it and they start anew seeking a new target hash (give up and start digging a new hole).
Super. Extra. Over. Simplified.
--Still--
You must grasp blockchain (an appendable, unerasable, distributed, verifiable ledger (with caveats, it is the future after all)) before you should do fuckall with Bitcoin.
Pretty good blockchain primer:
Very good Bitcoin mining primer:
https://coinsutra.com/bitcoin-mining...ide-beginners/