If you don't place bet with real money I think its not gambling instead its just "playing game".
literally the adrenaline and entertainment coming from placing bet using money.
I agree with this, because basically if we use money we can have the possibility of the final result of gambling that we can consider as a reward for gambling, so if we don't use money I think it will be very boring and very, very useless, just watching empty spins without any expectations, without adrenaline that can excite the gambling that is done, because it's just a number of numbers on a utopian balance.
Maybe this can be provoked, for example with friends, we can compete to get an imaginary balance on the account to make a very large amount, but it does not have a long impact and we quickly get bored in doing so.
Do free games excite you as much as games that involve betting money?
free game that you mentioned will definitely less exciting, it's basically like just playing game which essence is killing time, so logically its not as entertaining as the game that requires placing bets. I mean the fact that you don't stake anything mean whether you lose or win doesn't really affect you therefore it produces less excitement.
Which means that if you don't risk anything, there are no wins and losses, and maybe it's just a game win that makes our time occupied by the same game but not fun, basically humans are all the same, if the free game can get fun, or can provide benefits for us, today most people will not risk their money to gamble, they will definitely do it all to get fun and win.