If you are betting with your life, might as well reconsider because that is something you can never take back no matter how much you regret it.
That would be a very rare and extreme case, at least in my country. One could think about the Russian roulette or games like that, on one hand, or borrowing money from some mafia and being killed for not paying it back, but these are cases that I fortunately only know from films basically.
In my case, losses were simply painful, but not too much. I had a bad experience when I was very young (a kid to be honest) and I learnt that I could never rely on gambling as a way of living because things can go wrong no matter what you do. So I've always taken calculated risks and yes, losing is always a bit painful, but not so much if you truly expect them like the most probable result.