I've seen some extremely smart people get burned by bad mortgages they got during the recent housing boom. It's not as cut and dry as the media is making it out to be. The assertion that people were buying more than they could afford is technically true, but it wasn't exactly presented that way to them in the first place. Blame should fall at the hands of the mortgage brokers first, not the uninformed buyers.
I don't quite get the analogy to gambling.
Color me uninformed but I dont really watch much tv or read too much into these things so the media really doesn't influence my opinion too much. When I was buying my house 3 years ago the option of an ARM just sounded like a huge scam to me that's all. To me it seems like "Gambling" because there's a chance your rates could either stay the same, lower, or rise dramatically depending on lots of things. That's risky is all i'm saying. Anyone with a little common sense should see that. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
I'm not taking blame away from Brokers because they are just as responsible as the buyers but jesus christ people need to inform themselves better before making gigantic decisions like these.