No one is giving out health insurance to pursue a +1% advantage at the blackjack table. The majority of the so-called pros are just one cold streak away. Adrenaline does not make you mentally healthy. It only covers up the damage, it puts it under the grind. You go numb. Money ceases to be real. Time ceases to be real. You lose the idea of enough - that word disappears.

In this system, even the urge to gamble is a rational reaction to limited agency. When you are cornered, when you are fed up with being pressed by wage work or precarity, the casino floor seems the only fair playing field. It is not, of course, but the illusion is strong.

People talk about preoccupation as if you can just step back, breathe, and reset. Not really. It is immersion. It rewires you. The worst part: no one celebrates you when you walk away. There is no ticker-tape parade for the guy who realizes, quietly, that he would rather build something else, somewhere else.

Most pros? They do not last. They burn out, cash out, fade out. The system is designed that way.

You want real agency? Create something, anything, that rewards you with your mind and your attention, not just your tolerance to risk. The table is open, and the payoff is seldom freedom.