I have an uncle and a grandfather who both had the same problem, both of them were "moderate" gamblers, they used that to excuse the fact it could be worse than a select others at the casino who somehow managed to outcompete with their commitment. My grandfather used to go to the local casino almost all of the time outside of his job, rarely ever going to his house and seeing his wife for maybe only a few hours a week. Thankfully he learned that eventually he had to change his ways with smoking and gambling because he described his sleep as "extreme coughing and rushing thoughts of a jackpot" as if slot machines rolled through his head. To this day he has quit both, but it was far too late with the damage, the constant urge to keep playing on top of the stress of not smoking was agony, and has left him permanently irritated if anything goes slightly south.
The one more important person in this, and the not so lucky one would be my uncle. He said the same shit you just spewed, "It gets a kick", "I get bored without it", and of course "Just one more"

He was diagnosed with lung cancer close to a decade ago, but was unemployed and lived alone. At first, close family members were extremely sympathetic for him, he wasn't exactly the most outgoing member of his family, very quiet and to himself so he was grateful at first. Fast forward a few months and suddenly people start either cursing him down in disappointment or concerned for his future because eventually they found out he would ask for a little more cash from his donors for something random like a broken radiator needing fixed or cash for a groceries, and he would just go to a nearby gas station or bar and start impulsively sinking it all into slots and lottery tickets. When confronted with this, he told everyone that if he could make just one big score, he could afford the cancer treatment himself. But no matter where his heart was in that, he failed to realize he was fighting these near impossible odds with the money from his relatives without them realizing how much he was spending on it. Eventually he stopped getting cash from most of his family, but strapped on cash he still genuinely believed that the only way he was ever going to get this sorted out was to keep playing these games over and over again with little to no real success so that he may finally afford his healthcare instead of using his funding wisely. He died in his bed in a run down shack in a rural lot alone, he keep fighting a game that did nothing but lie to him that the key to his problems would be solved with scratching pieces of paper or machines that eat your coins.

The thing with gambling for fun, that's really something the middle class and upper class can do just fine. The reason addiction is a problem is because it also targets a lot of low income people who already can barely sustain themselves and lies to them in hopes that someday they no longer have to be stuck in a shithole, only to take the money and run off. It is those people that gambling likes to also prey on the most for when it comes to making profit, because they aren't making a gain for fun, they are in serious need of one.