That's why gambling is not for everybody. To be "successful", and hat means not losing everything you have, you must have a strong mind, and I mean a very strong one! Almost everybody is destined to fail because they are missing this key ingredient. Without a strong mind that tells you to stop before it's too late it mostly goes the same way for everybody. There are often 2 scenarios, you win a bit, then lose it back and start chasing your wins even though there weren't yours to begin with. Or just start with losses and chase those until it's also all gone. Either way, the house always wins, the saying is more than true.
All this happens because most people see gambling as a form of money making thing, while it's supposed to be entertainment, some sort of escape as the thread name suggests. Many people take it too far though and we can see this in many people's posts in our forum as well.
So you think that being successful in gambling only means not losing everything? But how about winning? Isn't is why so many people still gamble? Not losing everything you have is certainly better than wasting all of it, but it's still a few steps back. It's a rollback from the initial situation, because if you lose what you had, even if not entirely, it means you'll end up with less than you started with. And that's hard to call success, as far as I can see it.