*NOTE: I'm not encouraging betting, but rather what its affects have been on me*
I went to my grandma's house today and I brought a poker set with chips. My cousin said we should play hold em for money and I hesitated, but agreed.
So we have 5 chips each, and each chip is worth a dollar. We play, chips are going back and forth, until one round, he goes all in and I come out with two Aces. One of the previous rounds, I was down to 3 chips.
Anyway, the point of the story is that when I played for money, the game really mattered to me. Something just clicked that was more satisfying and frustrating than a videogame or a board game.
I guess you don't really try or care unless you are going to lose something. Then you will do as much as you can to save it. It's an odd mentality, but I've never felt so alive in a game.
And just to say, in the end, when I got all his pokers, we just called it games and didn't pay each other.
The moral of the story is unlike games where it's about achieving the positive result, perhaps avoiding the undesirable result makes everyone try a bit harder.
I would've taken the money. But I only play with change so the others don't mind paying up.
I make sure not to die in any game so I don't waste valueable hours of my life. Because I know i'll have to do something over again, and if I do it over again too many times, if my life is being wasted something is coming with me, like a cracked CD or broken wall.
I love Texas Hold 'Em, I'd rather play that than a video game. Sadly no one here likes holdem

In my opinion it all depends, betting makes it more fun when you win, but less fun when you lose. I prefer not betting on card games, because I'm not good enough at it for it not to be about a 50/50 chance of me winning. If it was something more like betting on a game of Monopoly, I might do it, but Monopoly is still partially luck.