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.
Maybe for the country that they live, $1k may have a big money already and that it could start some business as initial capital. But the question is that his friend gamble it in hope that he can make it double or even more. I remember one thread about recovering gambling addicts and it was an eye opener because those people says that they see gambling as a means to make more money but in the end, it was not.
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.
And I guess the point is that regardless of what the amount will be, it has two ending. Either you win or lose, and most of the time the stories that we here is that those who take the risk ended up with nothing. And so instead of having a business, they have no money left but then still thinks that gambling will be a savior which is not and it's the wrong mentality in my opinion.