If you just spend money blindly and hope for the best, then yeah it's a gambling. However it's more than that. PPC is an art.
You need to come with your assets: your landing page, tracking tool, money etc. which are a must for a successful campaign...
In fact I recommend you to build an email list... find tutorials to create a squeeze page(the page where people enter their emails), create an autoresponder( I personally use get response to create one), find content for that niche and create a few emails.
You can send around 3 useful emails, then send one promotional ...
Use bing as a beginner as they provide you a free $100 coupon(but you need a valid credit card)
Then go to google keyword tool, enter [niche] keyword and click to get more results...
Now use your common sense to pick those keywords with intent buying...
For instance if you're in the health niche... you should be aiming for keywords like:
treatment for x
how to cure x
x relief
etc.
It will take it a little bit of time to set up, but it's waaay better than just direct linking...
So yeah, ppc is a great option, not so great if you're a beginner as you may lose money at first and you may get frustrated and quit...