The Gambler. A movie about gambling that I actually enjoyed watching

First check the trailer:

The Gambler - a 2014 movie with Mark Wahlberg which portrays the thrill of gambling in an accurate way. More information about the movie you can check here on this wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gambler_(2014_film)

Hear, first, I do not endorse the irresponsible gambling shown in the movie. However, the way the movie has been created will allow people to feel similarly to how Mark Wahlber is feeling when he is betting. You can emphasize with the losses and wins because of how absurd some of the situations were. There're some moments where you are holding your breath for the next card, watching the wheel of the roulette with attentive care and it's a true "all or nothing" movie about gambling. There's nothing wrong with that since it's a movie, Hollywood does this even with true stories - it's called dramatization.

Personally, I had also these moments where you just shout "NO, NO, NO" as you watch the main character screw up something - like losing all of the money that he just borrowed or won. Money that he needs to pay off debts which if unpaid means he will lose his life. Gambling can hurt you for real if you do not take care of your finances. That's why I have a rule - never gamble for more than 5% of your MONTHLY income. Please do not gamble with savings or money you have put aside. Treat gambling as going to the cinema. You never hear people having lost their homes because of going to watch movies, right? That's because you do not spend all of your money on your hobby/entertainment. If you are doing that it means you have an issue. There're weird cases where a person gets to spend all of his cash on let's say Japanese anime dolls figurines.

There's an exception to any rule of course - if you're real rich and own millions in the bank I guess it's okay to gamble away two hundred thousand dollars, otherwise it is unacceptable. This kind of money buys supercars after all, and there is a lot of thrill in owning one too :)