At his regained to a normal state of health, he explained that he thought he would be lucky to win at the stake so as he could expand his intended business with a bigger capital.
At a point I don't see any business oriented ideal in this Friend because $1,000 ls good enough for a start of lucrative businesses.
I'm really skeptical if 1000$ can really give you a lucrative business in my country but maybe in your country since that amount is only the price of the business location with very rental small place but resorting to gambling using the funds that is intended for important matters is always a big red flag because you are risking the money that you can't afford to lose.
I thought the amount involved here is around 10K or more since it sounds like very serious while reading the introduction of the story including the colluding just to hide gambling. But I will do the same of hiding my gambling activity to others if someone knew enter to my place though even though I'm just playing for fun because it's not cool being known as a gambler in my country. Your friend is still lucky to still involve not that significant amount of money on gambling because he can easily repaid it through jobs.