Substituting addictions is never an option. It might appear to be helpful in some cases, as some therapists might even suggest that, but in reality it's something which should never be considered.
If someone who's used to hard drugs considers gambling to be the rescue, to some, the hard drugs have a big health effect on them compared to the damage gambling can cause to them.
But to me, they are all in the same phase; every form of addiction is entirely bad, if you ask me, unless it's in a situation where the addicted drug person considers gambling as a distraction but doesn't get addicted to gambling. At the end, only then can I consider it to be a success story.
It could, as already happened to a casual gambler who bets and wins a large amount, enough to get out of debt!
This could be considered a success story, right?
I personally know someone who was in debt with the Italian tax authorities and thanks to a win of only 30,000 euros he managed to repay the debt.
This is a great success with low risk, he simply got lucky with a 3 euro bet, we are talking about a casual gambler,
but how many like him? I think 0.0001%
This one is indeed a success story, which is not like substituting addiction. Instead, the person who was in debt was lucky enough to hit a jackpot with little winning, which was used to clear up that debt, but such a type of story is rare. Like you have pointed out, the percentage to be really small, and the gambler made good use of the money which was won and did not end up being too greedy to chase more winning, which could have led to wasting that money again back to where it came from.