I'd like to share my experience with you all. Even though I'm not currently employed, I went through a phase of gambling while I was working in the past, and the outcome wasn't positive. It affected my job performance because, as you may know, when you lose, you tend to dwell on your losses and constantly think about strategies to win. When we talk about work, it usually means we're not particularly wealthy, and imagine what happens when we gamble money we can't afford to lose, especially when we're not earning much.
Yes, it will be unpleasant if you have a regular 9-5 job and then after that you will go on a gambling binge. Not a good combination specially if you live by paycheck to paycheck. Of course there were days that you are going to win, but as we all know, the house edge are going to caught up with us. And no matter how much money we have, if we don't have control over our emotions, sooner or later we're all going to lose.
Let me tell you, the feeling is far from pleasant. It leads to a decline in your work performance, which can have significant consequences since that's your primary source of income. It might be manageable if you're winning, but the harsh reality is often quite the opposite. Even when we do win, we tend to spend most of our winnings, so we don't treat it as business money. This leaves us in a precarious situation when we lose because the money we initially budgeted for our families gets diverted to cover unexpected gambling-related expenses.
Yes, you are affected mentally, maybe there will be times after you lose that you will blame everyone around you, your officemates, your families to the badluck that you encountered when you gamble. But if you look closely, you are the one that put yourself into this predicament and no one to blame except you. And then you suffered depression in days, maybe loan some money to your officemates just to be able to cope with the issues of money that you have lost to gambling.