At least thats the answer I give my wife when she asks for $300 so they can go to the museum
That is just sad man. Don't tolerate your children that way, I know that they can see the importance of money in the future but that is sad as a parent since you are not giving them enough money for their happiness.
Museums are great but your kids being in a field trip is also great since they can be able to communicate with other kids, they can have a lot of memorable experiences that they will eventually tell you on the time they got home from these field trips. "Experience is knowledge", as my teacher on psychology taught us, it is important for them so prioritize them than your gambling.
No one should neglect the children cause of anything, especially cause of the gambling. There are many similar stories with drug addicts, some people are selfish and they think just about themselves, they don`t care about others and what they do to others with their behavior. I gamble for more than 10 years, and in that time my private life never suffered cause of the gambling. I believe that addicts are people with weak minds, people who doesn`t have control over their emotions and actions. There are too many sad stories in this thread, it`s good that some people are willing to share their gambling addiction stories, that can be very helpful to other people, everyone should read about this and to not allow themselves to get to deep into any addiction, especially gambling addiction, which is one of the worst ones, it gets directly into the mind and it`s hard to get out from that.