You don't have to be an addicted gambler before you can be successful in gambling, this is not by how hard we try to gamble that makes us successful, it's by how skillful we appear to be together with the luck involved in each gambling attempts we made whenever we are on casinos, to be a successful gambler, you don't have to be an addicted one, you only needed to have the same mindset as others have being successful in what they do while gambling together, this is more of how prepared we are in gambling and how knowledgeable we appear in what we do when gambling and not by addiction, gambling addiction will only make success more far from you than imagined.
I think you are spot on.
It's just the illusion of getting closer to becoming rich. The only people making money (other than a few lucky ones) are the casino operators.
Those are the ones that actually make the big bucks. And that makes sense really, because they are providing a lot of value to a lot of people.
They sell the illusion of being rich, which is quite a common thing to want.