As an addendum, as I don't want to add even more text to this reply itself, my point is that while gambling is clearly an irrational investment strategy as the

As an addendum, as I don't want to add even more text to this reply itself, my point is that while gambling is clearly an irrational investment strategy as the odds are so bad compared to conventional forms of investment (some of which are at least guaranteed to not incur any losses beyond inflation), it's entirely understandable why it's appealing if the alternative is to be stuck on the lower end of the income range (or even dropping into welfare) forever. While wealthy "whales" exist and the gambling industry likes to portray them all as Saudi oil barons with more money than sense so you don't feel bad about them sinking a few billion dollars into gambling as extravagance because they still come out as billionaires, the truth is the most reliable source of income are people (and for cultural reasons especially men) with a low income who see no career path to "striking it big" and think gambling will work for them because beating the literal odds feels more managable than doing so at the job market. On my way to work I drive past four gambling halls, including two sports betting places. There's another sports betting machine at a nearby bodega. The cars parking in front of these places aren't fancy, they're average at best. The people coming in and out of these places or discreetly trying to smoke outside without being identified by people who might know them are mostly typical workers, more likely to be immigrants than not, often enthusiastically chatting about their dead-end side-hustles or acquaintances of acquaintances who have "struck it big" but often just end up "reinvesting" their gains and losing it all again. The gambling halls and sports betting places don't provide entertainment. They provide empty promises. Especially with sports betting the gamblers understand it as a game of skill rather than chance and they think they just have to do good enough to become millionaires.