@Dutchess_III
It is contrived to a degree. It’s in the casino’s interest for the players to win to a degree. Winning small amounts every few rounds keeps you at the table playing, spending money, buying drinks, etc.
Maybe you might walk in with $20, ultimately lose that, then walk away with only a $20 loss. Someone else, upon winning a few hands (even if it only amounts to a few dollars), might decide that they’re “getting hot”, that luck is one their side. They’ve got a big win coming up, they “can just feel it”. So they go to the ATM and take out $20 or $40 more. Repeat the process over and over again until they wake up in their hotel room (possibly comp’ed by the casino, because they “treat their customers like kings”) the next morning hungover, with only a fuzzy memory of what happened the night before. They they look up their bank statement online and then contemplate trowing themselves out the window rather than face the financial ruination they’ve brought on themselves.
(Not that that’s ever happened to me or anything.)