replacing gambling with another activity, like gaming, could very well work.
I know that when I took an extended break from gambling, I just worked more and in my free time I would just play multiplayer games.
This won't work for everyone though and it's important to just be honest with yourself, seek professional help when you know you can't manage to quit on your own.
Being honest must be a practical approach because cheating ourselves will not hep in the progress of quitting addictions. In other words, we can say that we must show some dedication for quitting gambling. When we are willing to quit by heart then the chances for quitting will be really high. Unfortunately most gamblers are starting the process of quitting only due to the compulsion of their family members or due to lack of enough funds to continue gambling. In this case, I guess no one prefer quitting by full heartedly.
Honesty works everywhere hence it must work in the process of quitting gambling too. Only when we are honest to quit gambling, our family members will come forward to help us to engage ourselves with some other entertainments which is more important to deviate our mindset by not remembering about gambling.