It takes a combination of arrogance and denial to believe that you can beat the races. This fits perfectly with the egocentric fantasyland most of us over-30 single guys inhabit.
We could have been playing with miitary minatures. We could have been compiling discographies of sixties garage bands for Record Collector. We could have been doing drugs. Instead, we were devoting ourselves to the most mathematically unforgiving form of gambling in the world.