If gambling gives you some distraction or relief from your busy life then it may be used for temporary escape I think.
I also want to say like you every gambler should be careful about his gambling limits and determine when he has to stop when he loses several times at a time. we should keep in mind we gamble to get relief from work but somehow this gambling does not become a cause of our turmoil. For that you have to have control over yourself, if you lose you have to accept it and stop playing to ensure your stress level doesn't go up anyhow. Great to hear that you have been able to develop a sense of responsible gambling, it is really hard not to chase after losing!
But if we use gambling as an escape, we must know how to treat gambling with right because gambling can tempt us easily and makes us stay for a long term. It is better we use gambling for a way to have fun in our spare time and not for an escape so we will know when we must stops gambling immediately.
We must use limit when playing gambling so we don't lose too much money while we only want to enjoy our spare time by playing gambling. Yes, having control is a must for gamblers so they will not break the limits and could still aware with the temptation from gambling.
Actually, the word "escape" alone is problematic, because logically it means that someone is running away from what they should face, so this is also very risky to cause even bigger problems. As you said, gambling has an effect that can make someone feel at home for a long time to continue gambling, so it poses a risk because someone who "runs away from problems" brings unstable emotions, I can be sure of that. And maybe from that emotion it can cause something unwanted, instead of being able to relieve the problem, it actually makes the person even more stressed.