Truth be told, I don't believe it's only addicts that are prone to losing huge sums in gambling, the fact the gambled wild a few times doesn't really make you an addict. What you should say is, there's always time in a gambler's life that he'll be pushed to gamble wild. Gambling wild a few time is different from addiction. Addiction is when you're already used to wild gambling and you don't think about nothing else other than to gamble. That's addiction.
This makes me remember one of my friends. I also know a guy that is not my friend like that but he said the same thing. They said that they gamble ones with huge amount of money and the regret that they lost and that has been the last time they gamble. The other guy was my friends neighbor while we were in school. I also have a guy which is my departmental mate, he used his school fee to gamble and he lost it, he was lucky that his father gave him another school fees. He said he will never gamble again. These examples are not gambling addiction, you are right.