Your view of gambling as chilled-out leisure paints an alluring picture but not without risks. Things get messy when the initial excitement of risk-taking turns into a fixation. Saying that only a few gamblers can stay in control is a big understatement. Many studies reveal that most people can't recognize when they've shifted from a good time to an addiction. Their brains link the thrill of the gamble with happiness, complicating quitting. Though gambling for fun with self-restraint seems feasible, it overlooks the potential destruction of addiction. It's essential to highlight that for many, gambling isn't a simple toss-up between enjoyment and gain. It's a psychological trap causing deep financial and emotional issues.
Very well said, that's how human psychology is, we start doing something only to have some fun for only a small period of time, but as time goes on, we start increasing that time instead of leaving that thing, and when we keep going and increasing the time or the resources we spend in case of gambling it is money, we don't really realize what we are getting ourselves into until a time comes where we have already reached so far that it is almost impossible for us to return.
The same thing happens when we start gambling, we don't want to get addicted or gamble for addiction, and most of us might just gamble for fun initially, but as we get deeper into it, we start increasing our stakes, the money that we spend later will be way higher than what we have started with, and slowly, we get addicted to gambling.