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I find it useful when trying to understand the behaviour of other human beings to start out by assuming that they are basically (imperfectly) rational but may have different values from me. It invokes less of a warm glow of smug superiority but generally leads to more accurate predictions.
More importantly, "x is being irrational" can be a fake explanation if it's given without further detail. Much better to point to a specific fallacy or bias that would explain their behaviour.
In this particular case, though, how is it a matter of "different values"? Would anybody participate in casino-style gambling if they were better at thinking about probabilities and utilities?
I have gambled in a casino or the like exactly once in my adult life, when on a cruise I had a quarter, 25 cents, which I did not wish to carry around with me for the rest of the week. So I decided to "try my luck" at the quarter-push machine in the casino. I did not win anything, but being able to tell that story was worth every penny.