It's easy for me to sit here with righteous indignation, acting like I'm super smart for not blowing my money on gambling, and for a long time I did just that, but recently I've kind of realized that my cowardice towards losing money is also why I'll never be wealthy.
I gravitate towards decent-but-not-amazing-paying W2 jobs. I like them fine, I'm comfortable enough, and that's the safe, nearly-zero-risk path. It's certainly not a bad life or anything, but you also do kind of top-out fairly early. By age 27, I was a senior engineer at Apple. I didn't really have any intention of becoming a manager, so I was only like two promotions away from seemingly maxing out my career. I absolutely hated my job, and it depressed me because it felt like this was the end goal, and I was miserable; there was no more substantial path "upwards", and the top was just not a place I was happy.
If I weren't such a coward, and had a higher tolerance for risk, I almost certainly would have started a real business. Starting a business is basically a fancy gamble; most businesses don't succeed. It's kind of hard for me to condemn gamblers at that point.