[jamesfinlayson]

I don't have numbers but many years ago I worked for a lotteries company and I know one person had the responsibility (among other things) of phoning up big spenders to check if they were exceeding their means. I remember one huge spender being an off-shore syndicate.

The company (and most lotto companies would be the same I'd guess) had little interest in taking money from problem gamblers too because in most cases their business is a monopoly so they're making good money anyway, and enabling problem gamblers would almost certainly be a breach of their license, so they'd be up for big fines (or in an extremely unlikely scenario, loss of their license). Contrast that with horse and sports betting companies where there's lots of competition and slim margins, so if you want to make money you need to take a bit from the problem gamblers.

That said, it probably is a Pareto distribution, but skewed: maybe 95% low/normal spenders, 4% syndicates/big spenders with means, 1% problem gamblers.