Why should a billionaire like him play with his own pennies? That's small time. He can't reach his goals with baby steps. He's got millions of his own personal money to squander in casinos. Not only that, he also has access to the billions of money that his clueless customers deposited in his exchange. He must have thought he could use them to try recovering what he lost after Terra collapsed. And yes, he actually used Stake as one of his gambling platforms of choice.
He feels that he can do whatever he want, without having to face any consequences. He was conducting an interview after the collapse of FTX from Bahamas, and this was his facial expression:
The name of this guy should be changed from Sam Bankman Fried to Sam Bankman Fraud. Look at him laughing during the interview. It is clear that he feels a lot of contempt towards the ordinary users who lost their life savings. Now he is flying in business class and gambling away hundreds of millions of USD. Tells a lot about the arrogance and lack of accountability.
I guess it pays off to donate nice amounts to politicians. This is a bad precedent but it really looks like this is what Scam Bankman-Fraud is reaping right now. He sowed some niceties to the powerful, he got some niceties from them in return. Imagine this man scammed millions of people of their billions, but he's free and he even seems having fun with all his blunders.
With all the protection that he's getting right now despite his crimes, I won't be surprised if he still continues to gamble until now with people's money.