While I agree with your main point, I'm not sure what the article has to do with it. It's sounds more like a poll on how much debt or bills the responder currently has to deal with.

the post I was replying to boiled down people's decisions as "What is the risk of getting caught and is it worth risking?"

I was linking it to mention that many (most?) people's mental model of risk is extremely conservative. They would forego an expected value 10x reward just for predictability/certainty. Similarly, I believe people weigh the "risk of getting caught" extremely highly in their heads. Far higher than it makes sense to from a purely game theoretic perspective.

However, this is probably a good thing. I like such people.