Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course a lot of those players have in turn gone on to gambling and hedge funds.
I often wonder about this in the context of musicians and actors. You would have to be a fool to pick such careers, as the prospects are so dim. Yet because of this dimness the selection pressure is very high on the pool of contenders. So our best actors and musicians are fool/geniuses. Which implies the most innately talented potential musicians and actors are working at a hedge fund or Google DeepMind. And perhaps…
That assumes everyone picks their job as a rational economic actor. This is clearly not the case. Even if it were, if you believe you have a decent change then you might as well give it one shot, and if it doesn't work then you can fall back on something else while you're young.
Note that this is the same rational for starting a startup. Would you argue that all successful startup founders are the best of a bad lot?