To be honest, I've always cringed whenever I come across the term or such phrase as "successful gambler", it makes me to ask if there are truly successful gambler out there, whom we can truely refer to as successful gamblers because gambling is the only thing they do for a living and are making enough money from it to the extent that they are making enough money from it and can afford the average good things of live?
I ask this because, to me, I have not seen a successful gambler who's only source of income is gambling, all the people I have seen and are refered to as successful gamblers usually are into multiple things having a business running for them somewhere, trading and investment in various places, while also gambling.
Can such persons be considered as successful gamblers when it's clear that gambling is not the only source of their wealth?.
I think to be successful in gambling doesn't make reference only to being a gambler in profit, rather it's more about a gambler who has been betting for a long time, without compromising another sectors of his life, like businesses, career, investments, family, social circle, education and inner balance. A successful gambler is someone who embodied gambling to his life in a functional and responsible way, having this as just another aspect or activity from a wide range of practices he executes, which is quite the opposite of addicted gamblers, who focus the whole meaning of their existence into this single activity (gambling) or use it to escape from aversive conditions, responsabilities, traumas experienced in a recurrent basis.
Then we have the difference between being a profitable gambler and a successful gambler. A profitable gambler has always to be a successful gambler at same time, as he needs all the characteristics mentioned above in order to remain profitable along the time without harming his personal wealth, sources of income, family and social relationships, although a successful gambler doesn't need to be necessarily in profit to be considered so.