500 coins are needed to award gold to someone, the daily free awards can also be awarded for 200 coins I recall, but awards are from 20 coins each.
And I took stock of where I spent my time, and it was better value for money than many other things. Fair pay to fair services, if you can fairly afford it imo.
I don’t know what you are referring to, but that sounds akin to having a gambling problem. I’m more of a guy who buys a lotto ticket each week because I can, not because I’m driven to.