One argument is that gambling requires the chance of a loss - you go to a casino, make a wager, buy a lottery ticket, bet on a horse race, you can lose your money and end up with nothing.

But buy a Labubu, a Lego minifigure blind bag, MtG booster, or a video game lootbox, and while you don’t know exactly what, you will always get something in return for your money.

Then again, “taking a gamble” is a term used for many things, like when you buy a used car without extensively checking the condition first, because you don’t know what exactly you are getting…