If there's money that he can use to divert that attention instead of consuming more time with gambling, you can use that time to learn business or investment, not easy but there's also a good chance that you'll be able to read and understand the flow and you will be able to follow good patterns to make a successful journey both from investment and business.
All you have to do is to focus and use whatever resources that you have to make things as potential venue for earning profits.
Creating a new business will be a good solution for people who have money because they can earn money from their business without losing money in gambling. And instead of learning how to play a gambling game, he can use his time to learn about business or investment to grow his business. While he can play gambling in his free time, he can also have a new thing to do: run his business. That will make him keep busy and focus on his business.