While leverage and margin are closely interconnected, they are not the same thing. Both do involve borrowing in order to trade in the financial markets, however leverage refers to the act of taking on debt, while margin is the actual money or debt that the trader has taken on to invest in financial markets. So, leverage is referred to as a ration, such as 1:30 or 1:100, which indicates how much debt can be taken on to open a position, while margin is referred to as the actual amount borrowed to create the leverage. For example, with 1:100 leverage you can control $100 of an asset with only $1 in margin.