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Not all gambling is about the luck of the draw. Poker for example, requires a great deal of memorization, understanding of mathematics and fast computation of probabilities, as well as being a quick study of human psychology. Sure, luck beats skill everytime, but the law of large numbers will make sure skill wins out eventually.

I assume you are talking about gambling games which are purely random and which have no strategery to pursue.

You wrote, "I assume you are talking about gambling games which are purely random and which have no strategery to pursue."

I wasn't drawing those distinctions. While I don't gamble, at all, ever, I'm not a puritan about it. If friends want to gather for a friendly game of poker, sure, fine. But let's be straight about this: they play because it's a fun way to spend an evening, not because they're honing their math or memorization skills, and they're probably not playing for stakes that would bankrupt the guy across the table, or feed a known gambling addiction. I think large-scale, organized gambling--especially state-sponsored lotteries--are a moral travesty. I think it would be difficult to teach my children the value of learning and hard work while I'm pumping tokens into a slot machine. I think it's telling that soldiers were gambling at the feet of Christ while he was crucified, and draw conclusions from that. Again, to each his own, and no one died and made me the all-seeing, all-knowing judge of others, but I'm a recovering addict and former all-around bad guy who comes equipped with a conscience now, and I have to go where my conscience takes me.