Keeping your gambling habit secret is optional as it varies amongst gamblers. It all depends on the person gambling. Your point of keeping it a secret for fear of influencing others. I don’t think it would any fault of yours if someone else get influenced without you putting any effort into doing so.
People enjoy gambling with friends as it could be enjoyable winning and losing with friends around having cheers and boos when there’s a win and when there’s a loss.
There are some activities that aren’t just fun when done alone.
Not everyone perspective on gambling will be the same and not everyone considers gambling to be normal activity to do because many people consider it bad and dismiss gambling as an illegal activity.
Apart from that, when you get big win it can also trigger confiscation and for online gambling there may be hacking, this must always be alert and one way is to hide every gambling activity that we do.
And the matter of being influenced by what we do in gambling is actually not something we have to think about because when we gamble, we never invite or suggest other people, such as our friends, to gamble together.
Sometimes it really fun to gamble with friends and feel the joy of winning and advising each other when they make mistakes that result in defeat.
But for now, I personally would prefer to carry out each gambling activity individually or not invite anyone to play or bet together.