false, its entirely possible. just look at all of the big professional poker players, as well as the everyday people that occasionally come along and get lucky at a casino. the pros stay pros for a reason, they earn a living out of playing cards, and some of them earn millions a year, which by your words, is apparently impossible. the everyday people that get lucky are just lucky people, and it serves as great advertising for the casino too, not to mention they probably can make that much money back in a matter of weeks.

gambling certainly isnt just a simple hobby for some professional poker players, to them, poker is a job, not a game or a simple hobby. the  mindset those people and most of the people on this forum have are complete polar opposites, and its a big part of what allows them to be successful at such a difficult game.

there isnt much aside from simple math most people utilize in gambling, i would say 99% of people only go as far as to calculate how likely it is theyll lose to some dumb martingale strategy or a variant of it. with that in mind, youre not really doing any meaningful mathematical calculations. going as far as card counting in blackjack or keeping in mind one's opponents cards in poker could be said to be more complicated though.

martingale is a losing strategy in every sense of the word. not only are you betting thousands of times with a house edge in play, youre also relying on gambler's fallacy that your bets will maintain some sort of even distribution over those thousands of bets. every bet should be taken by itself, and with that in mind, its pretty much a guarantee that youre going to lose. theres a good reason most of not all dice sites provide some autobetting tool on their sites.

skill isnt a factor in most gambling games, take dice for example, there is absolutely nothing even remotely close to skill involved in pressing a button for a high or low bet. there is skill involved in some pvp games however, such as poker, and to an extent, blackjack. very few can maintain a winning trend over a long period of time however.

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that's mostly true only for addicts though, most normal people will always try to play for money. an addict on the other hand, doesnt care if they win or lose, they just chase their gambling fix and nothing more. to them, the cost of losing is the just the cost of getting their fix, nothing more. and if they win, just just get another one is all.

if youre playing live or with other players, just looking at what the other players have been dealt, as well as the recent cards that have been dealt can net you a huge advantage in blackjack. for example, if a fair number of face cards were dealt in the hand, it can be assumed that the next card that will be dealt il less likely to be a face card, which might make the difference between you standing and hitting to bring you closer to 21.

that's only if youre thinking in terms of fiat. nowadays when i gamble, im gambling with bitcoin and think in terms of bitcoin. its way too much trouble, honestly, to keep track of how many dollars im betting, or how many dollars i have left to work with. just look at the number on the screen honestly.
the morals of allowing gambling and the laws related to gambling are entirely different matters.

its possible to win a lot in a casino, its just that most people cannot bring themselves to stop winning until they have no choice but to stop, which is when they just run out of money. people lure themselves into some delusion that they will win out the casino's entire bank or something, just off a recent string of wins or something. they never stop to consider that they might just start up a string of losses either, and always, always try to recover any losses before quitting.

of course you can win from gambling, its just less likely that a player will win than they are likely to lose a game that's more or less tailored to profit the casinos that host them. with games that you can play "smartly" in, however, it is possible to come out ahead in the long run, provided you dont get hit by a bad streak of bad luck. blackjack(making the right calls and observing what's dealt) and poker and probably the easiest to profit in the long term with, but even that takes a considerable amount of experience.

poker is definitely gambling, its just that unlike most other games in a casino, skill and strategy also play a role in the player's chances of winning. luck is still a factor of course, skill cant change the cards a player is dealt, but an experienced player can bluff their way out of a bad hand if they play it right. one key difference though, these players treat poker as a job, not a source of entertainment.

completely untrue, there are plenty of people that have made it big off a lucky streak, or earn a living through games such as poker. it is never a guarantee that gambling is a for sure loss, otherwise people wouldnt ever bother gambling knowing that they would just be throwing their money away. and again, its not impossible to make a living off gambling, theres plenty of poker professionals that would say otherwise.

not surely, gambling is a game of chance, and theres nothing that says its a guaranteed loss. anyone can win, its just more likely that people will lose in the long run. also, going off that, investing is not risk free either, you can most definitely lose out from investing if a player in that casino happens to win big. its just more likely that, in the long run, investing should turn a profit.

i disagree, the casinos employ specific games that are more or less designed to be addicting and profit them be exploiting the addicted users. there's no point in making games that arent fun available to users, no one would play them and the casinos wouldnt generate profit, simple business model. all the flashing lights, the dealers shouting when there's a winner, its all designed to  get people hooked.

no, most gamblers employ at least basic risk management in the sense that they dont always mindlessly all in on stupid odds. despite this, the fact remains that gambling in online casinos favors the house, and risk management might as well be a nonfactor in games such as dice where the game isnt set on an even playing field from the start.

to those hardcore addicts, getting their fix is their top priority, so yes, I would say its worth for them. just think, and alcoholic doesnt care if they pass out in the middle of the street barely able to stand, they have a bottle of liquor, and that's all that matters to them. a meth addict doesnt care how they get the money, it only matters that they have the money to buy another tenth of a gram at the end of the day. its the same with gamblers. losing doesnt matter because they still got to wager something.

keep thinking like that and you get a stagnant economy, not to mention that particular situation can be said of any currency, and has already happened with bitcoin in the past with early adopters gambling. everyone just holding their coins based on the thought that bitcoin's price may skyrocket will get bitcoin nowhere in the long run. imagine if all of europe thought the euro would skyrocket in the next year and everyone decided to never spend any money. besides the fact that would be impractical, the world's economy would be impacted, and the euro would just decline.

completely untrue, there are so many ways people can find sources of entertainment without having to spend money, and gambling is not at all "human nature." our society would be in a sorry state and overrun by casinos at every block if gambling was at all an inherent part of human nature. all it is that some people find gambling more thrilling than other forms of entertainment, and end up addicted.

there are plenty of cases of people able to make a living off gambling, just turn your tv on the next time there's a professional poker tournament on. what most people lack is the dedication to pursue a career in gambling, that is, they believe gambling is only for fun, and dont at all think that enough experience in poker could possibly net them the title of a pro.