Hi Zlawrence and welcome to the Forum, well done on looking for help.
Have you read some of the otehr stiries here? I expect you will see a lot of things that you can relate to.
You sound unsure as to whether you are a gamblign addict. The 20 Questions they have on teh GA website can help you make your mind up on that. here is a link:
http://www.gamblersanonymous.org/ga/content/20-questions
The questions are relevant whether or not you ever decided that GA was for you.
As you will see in the forums, if gambling is a problem then it tends to be progressive in nature, things get gradually worse. So it may be that you have to decide whether you want to take action now…. or wait till things get worse.
I can tell you that you can stop gambling, if you want to “control” your gambling then I can’t tell you how to do that. I guess that if I knew how then I would still be doing it myself!.
It doesn’t matter what your friends do/don’t do. If they are “worse than you” or not, you need to do what is best for YOU.
I’d say that some of the things you have said above indicate at least the beginnning of a problem, check out those questions and let us know how you score.
I am in the groups here for the next 2 1/2 hours or so, maybe pop in for a chat.