Poker is actually not that much different than what you describe. My father played a lot of poker in card rooms. He talked a lot about losing strategically to t

Poker is actually not that much different than what you describe. My father played a lot of poker in card rooms. He talked a lot about losing strategically to the fish, to keep them coming back. Without the fish, there generally is no poker ecosystem since money generally follows the button, and without particularly weak players money just tends to change hands. And since there is a rake at most tables, you need a constant influx of money just to support the play. There is common wisdom that the rake can kill a local poker ecosystem. There can be a lot if good games for weeks or months, then all the weak players can’t sustain any longer, and all the medium players start losing and lose interest, and there’s no one left to win money from and games get harder to form.