In most forms of gambling you could drop your whole paycheck on gambling and still not end up terribly off. You'd be in about the position you would be in if you had to go to a check cashing place to cash your paycheck, although with more volatility. Dropping your entire paycheck worth of volume on slots and you are down what, like 5-10% on average -- most people have that much margin to spend on savings/discretionary/retirement.

Where you get in trouble is where you're cycling through multiples of your paycheck on wagers, recycling your bets. Then you're getting eaten for multiples of the house take on your income.

The problem is your typical slots player doesn't have the discipline to stop after running their roll once. They turn the $100 into $90, then the $90 into $81, then the $81 into...