I have few colleagues and friends, and they gamble too. I didn't become friends with them because of gambling, we were cool friend before I dived deep into gambling. Anyway, we do share our wins and loss together, and sometimes we combine to bet on specific odds we feel is better. What I can tell you is that, the aim of having a friend should not be about gambling, even if its a means to earn some extra bucks, there are other ways to make money aside from gambling.
Me too, I got friends who are gamblers as I am although we have been friends for a very long time, right from our school days, we do things together far back then but I must be sincere i don't like sharing things about gambling with any one although my friends do ask.me about booking codes sometimes for them to bet for themselves, we talk about football football too sometimes but I try as much possible not to discuss much with them on the whole gambling thing for some reasons.
Dude you got it right, keeping friends should be far from the purpose of gambling, but if I may asked do people attach this level of seriousness in gambling, our reasons for keeping friends should go beyond gambling of thing, many connections are there just as you note which we can get from friends.