When your mindset about gambling is just for entertainment, you can’t really expect to win.. just my observation. Because when I’m not serious about it, like when I treat it lightly especially in sports betting, I don’t study the games before placing bets. I usually end up losing more. I don’t lose big, but if you look at the record, it’s not profitable or even close to break-even.
For me it's the other way round, when am relaxed and not paying much attention to what's happening...I can play with my gut feeling and land a few winners here and there, but the second I chose to over think about a game, go into analysing the game, past history...this just brings confusion if it's not straightforward.
So personally, I would rather I gamble when am less distracted and playing without any kind of pressure to avoid irrational judgement.
But when I start believing that I can actually be profitable, that’s when I do the work. I study the games before betting, and that’s when I start getting better results.