I never dream to be a pro poker player or a pro gambler. That can give me bigger risk because I don't know how much money I will lose. I don't care if they can have a chance to big win, freedom to travel or other things like @OP's mention because the risk will be bigger and I cannot hold it. I don't want to consider a career at the card table or pro sports bettor. I can not afford more money than I used before because gambling is just a fun activity for me that I do occasionally.
Some people that became pro in gambling never imagined or have a thought about it but it just happened and I think this is due to how committed and consistent they were in gambling activities and how often they were winning because if you don't win often you can not become a pro or professional but you can become an addict but if you are winning often you will be tempted to increase your staking power and by so doing you are at same time increasing your winning and your loss because once you played with huge amount of money and it entered your return will be huge and if you lose that huge amount you play with will be loss no two ways about it and there is a point this set of people will play they won't give a shit about loss because of their rate of winning.