Gambling to escape reality is the worst situation to be in, it can lead to a heavy dependency issue that will only get worse because they have placed too much relevance in this destructive habit. Gambling without emotional management can be very dangerous, as a gambler you are not even supposed to allow gambling control your emotions. If it gets to the point where gambling makes you happy and can also make you depressed then just know that it has a huge impact on your mind.
If a person can control his emotions and have that kind of mindset where he can only spend a budget amount and nothing else, those people might find some enjoyment and kill boredom, though it's only few people who can do that, some really practice things well and others are been move to do it becuase of thier past experienced.
I agree with your last statement if gambling already affecting you bringing emotional swing it's best to weight in and see if you still can handle the pressure and still able to balance both your mental and financial capabilities.
For some reason this makes me remember a quote from Scott Alexander's essay _Meditations on Moloch_
Las Vegas doesn’t exist because of some decision to hedonically optimize civilization, it exists because of a quirk in dopaminergic reward circuits, plus the microstructure of an uneven regulatory environment, plus Schelling points. A rational central planner with a god’s-eye-view, contemplating these facts, might have thought “Hm, dopaminergic reward circuits have a quirk where certain tasks with slightly negative risk-benefit ratios get an emotional valence associated with slightly positive risk-benefit ratios, let’s see if we can educate people to beware of that.” People within the system, following the incentives created by these facts, think: “Let’s build a forty-story-high indoor replica of ancient Rome full of albino tigers in the middle of the desert, and so become slightly richer than people who didn’t!”Which is to say, the self-interest of those who build casinos / gambling platforms is rarely (ever?) aligned to cooperate with those who use them, so that gamblers are incentivized to spend a pre-set budget amount.
You can picture a casino built around responsible betting on a pre-set budget: it probably won't be a replica of ancient Rome full of albino tigers!