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Some here have said, as did bladdy kirsh, that "investing implies that regardless of the outcome, the investor will own something tangible".
This may be true in theory, but except for very large investors or very small stock issues, this isn't really true. Once you've made your purchase what you really own is a representation of a fraction of what other people think a company is worth. I suppose you own something "tangible" if you consider the paper your stocks are printed on, but you don't actually own anything tangible. Why do I say this? Lets say you wanted to get your "tangible" asset out of that piece of paper. Ignoring the fact that you're not going to be able to go to the company and claim anything physical, you want the worth of this supposedly tangible thing, if you can't someone to pay you for it, you have nothing. If you can find someone to pay you for it, you get what they think it is worth, nothing more and often less after fees for making the trade.
Lets say you buy 1,000 shares of a stock worth $100 a share. The company you're investing in at the time is actually worth $100,000,000. If this is "tangible," you now own 1/1,000th of the stock in this company. Lets say the company over time grows to $200,000,000 but because of some bad news or competition the stock is now worth $80 a share. They haven't issues new shares, so if this were truly something tangible you own, you should be able to go to the company and get $200 a share for it. That's equal to the 1/1,000th of the company and you own that many shares. Sadly for you, they'll laugh you out of the offices. You'll get $80,000 on the market (less fees) instead of your $200,000. Now that supposedly tangible thing is only 1/2500th of the company. It was tangible like ice under the hot sun.
Stocks are betting. They're not even betting on the performance of a company, they're betting on the perceptions of large groups of how the company is doing. Hell, there are countless times Amazon or some other stock will announce an increase in profits, but their stock will fall because it didn't rise by as much as the large crowd thought it would.
