In my country, the government also believes that Bitcoin is a gambling game and a means of getting rich quickly and that is why they stopped trading in Nigeria even with this it doesn't stop people who have been into it to sell off their coin or their investment.
Some may believe this but consider it not applicable to everyone because even if you're to take a look on the global adoption for bitcoin and the various communities we have, you could derive different opinions coming out from people on bitcoin as everyone is just busy saying what he thinks or feels without knowing the appropriate scenario attached to bitcoin adoption being a digital and a decentralized currency, so when they called it scam, maybe those people have been scammed before, there are still people who cannot do such or think otherwise.
Crypto will only fall as gambling if you are investing on the coins that have no real value from the start.
i strongly agree with this,i've once invested in a coin which gave me a loss to me it was like a gambling because the coin was seeming to be appreciative to me without considering the long term run effect.
Some digital currency have to start from the low before they habe the opportunity to maintain their desired reputation to catapult them to where they desired, same also is when you're investing in any cryptocurrency, if you invested while the coin was still low, you will be more profitable in it, as long as the coin is not operated or controlled by scammers, you will definitely make something good out of it.