Gambling has been a widespread form of entertainment for centuries. I Googled how many people gamble and on the first site they write that about 1.6 billion people around the world gamble. And this is almost 20% of the world's population.
Gitnux also writes that at the same time 4.2 billion play at least once a year.
I believe this number is much higher...
There are several countries in which gambling is prohibited, but people certainly don't stop gambling so they end up hiding their addictions and these numbers are not even counted.
In my country, for example, gambling is prohibited, but it is "normal" to see clandestine gambling taking place in various communities (in the same way as drugs are consumed), or in some fake establishments in which the police discovered that there were several poachers. nickels hidden inside.
I also don't know if it is included in these numbers, but I believe that lottery games should also be counted.
Anyway... the prohibition of gambling is a bad way to combat it. The best thing is to legalize it, charge a reasonable fee and inspect the establishments with part of the tax collected.
Yes, but probably around that ball park number, meaning gambling is really huge around the world, everyone is into it specially it is very accessible now, as pointed out by the OP in the first page.
It could be dangerous though, I mean everyone has a cellphone and others do have like 2 or 3 to boot. So they can just sit down anywhere even in a restaurant while waiting for their food to be served, play and gamble and that is scary. So for sure those numbers might increased in the next 10 years or so, online and offline gambling are really on the rise.