Ok you are gambling just for fun, your friends and neighbors knows that and a friend invited you to his party to be one of the candidates as a councilor and campaign will start in 6 months, now, of course, you need to have a good reputation, will you stop gambling just to have a good image this coming campaign and how will you defend yourself if accused as a gambler.
Well if the people knows your a gambler no need to stop it why? because no matter what if you stop or not the tag is already there, people never forgot where you are before , the thing that you need to do is to establish a credibility, that even if you are a gambler, you can assure them that you will not use the money of the people in gambling , but since they already know you as a gambler , they will still say something that what are people made , be yourself and never fake people and your good .
but politics are far different from normal living,people will always find ways to bring you down because in politics there is no permanent thing but the dreams of going up that is why Politics is one of the dirtiest form people might be.if you don't want to be criticized or throw words against you then better never enter political world.
stop gambling or Stop the dream of becoming politician thats the only option you have.