That's not entirely true. What the market needs is time to build real demand long enough to achieve sustainability. The team also needs time to build the casino, to make sure it's secure, and to offer the best casino experience possible. If the tokens were given in bulk for everyone to mere sell, then there is no time given to build both real real demand and real market sustainability.
Plus you said "price support". Are you suggesting that the team manipulate the price of SHFL? Ser, that would not be sustainable.
Setting up a price support is never considered as manipulation because the team is just providing liquidity to lessen the volatility of the token. Having a thick liquidity on exchange makes it lesser volatility whenever someone will sell their token. It’s actually a good move if they setup the buy back as price support instead of buying immediately on the market to show some strength on the orderbook.
Manipulation on trading is when the team announce a big news while they purchase earlier then dump their token when everyone is already buying. It’s controlling the price action in their favor while providing price support is just the way to strengthen the token valuation in the long run.