I try not to judge on how each one of the people on this world live their life, but I can certainly say that life style is not for me... It is literally allow luck or entropy to take the direction of one's destiny, take the control on whether one will be able to afford to eat or not, or be able to buy clothing for the next season or not.
Dices, playing cards, Plinko and even sport betting run on entropy, the disorder and unpredictability. If one lives thanks to unpredictability then our life itself will be unpredictable. I do not want that for myself and I personally pity anyone having to stick to that life style because they sadly do not know better on what to do.

Your friend definitely had good times with gambling when he was a defendant and got money from his parents, but after that stage of one's life, gambling with one's and money is a completely different thing.