You are correct, relationships are destroyed, worse is divorced if you are married, and then there are a lot of people or institutions going after the gambler because he has a lot of lots to pay, and if he can't worse is that he will take his life.
Though, that doess not mean I would not like to read and heard from people recovering from such situations. If there are people who can recover from heavy drug addictions, then there is definitely hope for those who have fallen into a behavioral addiction like this one.
It's good that you haven't seen or heard stories of gamblers being addicted and what actions they do when they are in the height of their addictions. As what others says, relationships with your families and your friends and then your reputation already damage. And as much as we try to help this kind of people, it's not going to be enough, there could be at least some professional help or betting be going into rehab like one friend that I know and he is totally clean in the last couple of years. Yes, there is hope, we have seen and heard stories of recovering addicts and what they do to make a U-turn and save their life.