What I find almost just as depressing is evidently the concerted push to normalize this practice.

The gambling industry has been trying to normalize gambling for decades.

I first ran into this in the mid-90's when the PR woman for a race track told me not to call it "gambling," but instead to call it "gaming."

We see gambling language used everywhere now, if you know what to look for. Terms like "all in" and "table stakes" are gambling terms,† but people use them every day in regular conversation.

† Though "all in" was used as far back as the 1930's to mean "very tired," I hardly ever hear anyone use it that way anymore.