You should never gamble or even trade if you've lost a job and got bills to pay. Its actually worse to gamble when your life depends on it rather then when it was just for fun.
When you gamble for fun, you dont have a goal of making a profit as a result. And you instead take it easy and relax and you might win. When you are gambling because you got bills, you need to win. And you basically go on tilt and start to make risky and bad decisions and eventually you will go broke.
This is similar to a trader who lost a trade, and then he reversed the trade and lost again and he reversed it again and lost more money. You need to know when to call it quit. And especially never after having no income.
That’s easy to say, but many people who lose their jobs spend the little money they have left on gambling, hoping they will win and survive for a month, maybe two… In any case, as i said in my previous posts, it should be taken as a big lesson when bad things in life happen, such as losing a job. People certainly need to find a way to make a profit, but many of them, out of impulsive reactions, end up losing even what they hadn’t planned to. Gambling, as you said, can be fun when it’s played purely for entertainment and in that case, there’s even a chance to make some profit.