gambling name is obvious: it is a game.
so you should treat it as a game too . not as an investment to make money and even if you treat it that way you have to test it first to realize that you were wrong before losing a lot of money.
the same goes with trading it is not easy, you should test that too at first to see if it can be profitable for you or not.
I agree with you mate that unless you develop a skill needed for both gambling and trading to win and have your 100% focus in learning and applying them, then you are good to go. However, if you have very important day job, better no focus on gambling and trading is ok. The reason is that, in trading you can be able to open buy or sell order at any time while in gambling, you will need to be right on betting unless, you are doing very risky autobetting.