I am familiar with this tradition and when I was a kid I do really thought that it is a bad thing and that people should focus more with the mourn and not with activities involving money or gambling to be more specific. As I grow up and learned that it is helping the family in the wake, and yes financially. It also adds "bond" to people who attended the wake in some ways. But there are people who are not having the intention to mourn; they're only visiting the wake because of these activities. Is it a bad thing? Morally, yes however no matter how we look at it, it is indeed legal and with approval from the family of the wake.

Gambling activities are often card games such as poker and a game 'bingo' if others are familiar with it. In my perspective, such activities also help to have people awake over the night to have things on watch, which is just one of the benefit of it. People may view it negatively but culture is behind this.