I don't think that any real gambler can be distracted by playing for fake money, but I know that a lot of people (including me) play stupid incremental games.
This solution will only favor those that are gambling because of the pleasure and not financial assistance. The users that's gambling just for entertainment won't be bothered whether he's using fake or real money but that user that's gambling because his livelihood depends on it for daily bread won't be interested as this won't favor him in the long run. Unfortunately many gamblers are in because they need financial assistance instead of the fun of the exercise.
Gamblers are mostly addicted to the financial assistance that comes from Gambling so until that is been eliminated majority of the solution to gambling addiction will be unprogressive. There's a minority of gambling that gamble just because of entertainment (fun of gambling) so any solution that satisfied that addictive won't have much impact in the addictions sector of gambling.
Seriously? All that gamblers get from gambling is not financial assistance, but rather financial losses. I can understand that someone inexperienced believes in "earnings" on gambling, but any gambler who continues to play for years (usually this happens) while being in a deep minus understands that there are no earnings here.
That is some illusion they get from winning big a single time.If they happen to hit a big win normally their brain will "explode" in the dopamine it will emit and thus will make such people believe that by gambling they can hit again that big win but unfortunately only to find out that in the long run they will lose money.
It is simple,if that was not the case we would rarely see new casinos opening up every day rather we would see old casinos closing business everyday,since we don't see the second example then we remain in the first as we see it happens all the time.