A 31-year-old Indian-origin software developer in Canada has described how years of stock trading grew into behaviour serious enough for him to enter a three-week gambling addiction treatment programme. Akshay Sapra, who lives in the Greater Toronto Area and works as a software engineer, says he recently lost more than C$350,000 — roughly US$250,000, or more than ₹2 crore — on SpaceX trades. Business Insider, which published Sapra's first-person account on August 31, said it verified his trading history and losses using brokerage screenshots and internet-history records. All dollar figures in his account were Canadian dollars.

At one point, Sapra says he was trading for around 16 hours a day, sometimes from bed on his phone. His story is extreme, but the broader risk is not. SEBI's latest data shows that nearly nine out of ten individual traders in India's equity derivatives market lost money in FY26, with combined losses reaching ₹91,685 crore.

How Stock Trading Turned Into Gambling Addiction for Akshay Sapra

Sapra's relationship with markets began while he was still at university. In 2017, a friend suggested buying marijuana stocks ahead of cannabis legalisation in Canada. The stocks rose, but Sapra found himself constantly buying and selling instead of holding them for the longer term. That behaviour continued after he graduated and took a software-engineering job.

A profitable short-term bet around Meta's earnings became particularly important. Sapra recalled that the trade produced a large gain and reinforced the excitement he associated with successfully predicting a stock's direction.

Eventually, trading took up a much larger part of his life. After leaving his full-time job, he delivered for Uber while continuing to trade. He also developed software for automated cryptocurrency trading, with several friends contributing money to the pool operated by his bot. The combination of frequent trading, large swings and constantly moving financial goals eventually led him to seek treatment. Sapra says he entered a three-week gambling addiction programme specifically because of his stock-market habit. Participants did not have access to their phones during treatment.

But he later returned to trading.

From C$1.7 Million in Gains to Heavy Investment Losses

Sapra's story is not simply one of repeatedly losing money. At one stage, he says he generated more than C$1.7 million through bets involving companies including AMD and Nvidia, using money from Uber driving alongside credit lines and loans. Initially, his goal had been C$500,000. He believed reaching that figure would allow him to buy a house, find a conventional job and step away from active trading. But as his account approached C$2 million, his expectations changed.

Taxes, Canada's expensive housing market and the possibility of earning even more caused the target to keep moving. Then came major investment losses. By the end of 2025, Sapra says he had lost most of his gains. A position in Beyond Meat alone cost him nearly C$200,000. Rather than accepting that loss, he tried to win it back through increasingly risky trades.

That cycle is one of the most important parts of his account: a large loss did not persuade him to reduce risk. It made him feel that he needed an even bigger win.

Why Trading Can Start to Feel Like Gambling

Stock-market investing and gambling are not inherently the same thing. Buying diversified assets for long-term wealth creation is fundamentally different from repeatedly placing leveraged short-term bets. But certain forms of speculative trading can share behavioural characteristics with gambling. Options can produce very large percentage gains or losses over short periods. Frequent price movement provides constant feedback. Early wins can reinforce confidence. Losses can then trigger attempts to recover money quickly.

Sapra himself acknowledges that distinction.

He says there is skill involved in what he does, but admits that his behaviour crosses into gambling territory too often. Recent Indian data makes that question particularly relevant.

SEBI reported in August that 87.7% of individual equity-derivatives traders lost money during FY26. Their combined net losses stood at ₹91,685 crore, while options accounted for around 92% of retail losses in the derivatives segment. The average loss per loss-making trader was around ₹1.17 lakh. These numbers do not mean every person trading options has an addiction. But they show how difficult consistently profitable speculative trading is for retail participants.

Nearly Nine in 10 F&O Traders Lost Money

SEBI's latest figures are especially significant because they came after regulators introduced measures intended to reduce excessive retail speculation. The number of active individual derivatives traders fell by roughly 18% in FY26. Even after that decline in participation, nearly nine in ten still finished the year in the red.

Aggregate retail losses fell from approximately ₹1.12 lakh crore in FY25 to ₹91,685 crore in FY26, but the average loss among those who lost money actually increased slightly. This provides a much stronger national context for Sapra's experience than individual stories alone. His losses are unusually large, but the basic pattern of retail traders struggling in leveraged derivatives is widespread.

Addiction and Stock-Market Fraud Are Different Problems

Another important distinction concerns scams. Someone compulsively trading legitimate shares or derivatives through a regulated broker faces a different risk from someone being tricked into transferring money to a fake investment platform. Both can produce enormous investment losses, but the mechanism is not the same. In response to the increase in fraudulent apps, SEBI and Google launched a Verified label for stock-trading apps belonging to SEBI-registered brokers on Google Play on March 25, 2026.

SEBI said scammers frequently create applications that resemble legitimate trading platforms and lure investors with promises of assured returns. The regulator now encourages investors to check whether intermediaries are registered, verify payment details and look for the verified-app label before transferring money. Those measures can help combat fraud. They cannot, however, prevent someone using a legitimate brokerage account from repeatedly taking risks that they personally struggle to control.

Cryptocurrency Trading Was Part of the Same Cycle

Sapra's experience also extended beyond conventional equities. He built an automated system for cryptocurrency trading, and the bot continued operating even while he was attending the three-week treatment programme without access to his phone. That detail shows how automated technology can make stepping away more complicated. A person may physically stop checking prices while algorithms, bots or standing orders continue participating in markets.

Sapra's story therefore spans shares, options and cryptocurrency trading, rather than being limited to one type of financial product. What connects them in his account is not the asset itself. It is the repeated pursuit of rapid gains.

What Is Akshay Sapra Doing Now?

Despite the treatment programme and his subsequent financial challenges, Sapra says he has not stopped trading permanently. He has returned to a software-engineering job and plans to publicly document his future trades through a stream or YouTube channel, hoping outside accountability will make it harder to take impulsive positions. He still hopes to recreate his earlier trading success without repeating the losses. That makes his story less like a neat recovery narrative and more like an ongoing struggle.

The biggest lesson may therefore come from the contradiction at its centre. Sapra once turned borrowed money and Uber income into more than C$1.7 million. He then watched most of it disappear. He sought treatment. He returned to trading. And after losing more than C$350,000 on SpaceX, he still describes the possibility of another huge winning trade as difficult to leave behind. For investors, that is the warning.

The danger is not only losing money. Sometimes the first big win can be what makes walking away hardest.