Indeed, but most gamblers can't deal with it, emotions and greed always hurting them when they are involve with their gambling sessions surely after suffering from a defeats they will be out of control with their emotions pushing them to do things unusual, gambling addictions creates un-balance ways of thinking, like what you said if you wanted not to be involve and not to suffer on losing your money better to play with games that are not requires real money.
But once you start using your hard-earned money, that's where the pressure will begin, after experiencing either winning or losing, your appetite increase and without good emotional control, you'll wreck everything and will create addiction inside you.
Playing demo games is like a wasting of time to addicted gamblers. Moreover, I'm not an addicted gambler but I don't find it interesting playing games where money is not involve. And yes, the emotional aspect of gambling is not being properly talk about as it requires. Gambling is one of the source that lead to numerous unhealthy behaviors you can think of, thus, having a strong emotional control is very necessary.
It's saddening addicts overlook the signs of their addiction until it grows to stage where it becomes difficult to handle. For everyone out there seeing those signs should please take a break and do something calming. Don't try to force things when they are not working. It's better to miss the industry than to allow addiction to destroy your life.