Much too hard to make gold.

[Will Badbreaker]

I've gotten far more gold by crewing up and sinking ships. Often getting between 700 and 1200 with a good crew. Though its true you can win at BJ and get money, you have you to know how to play the game. If you lost that much that quickly, you clearly don't know how to play BJ. I am not an expert and I rarely lost very much. AND if I did start losing, you stop for a bit.
Lucky for you this isn't real money lol. It is slow going at first in the game, but believe me, eventually you reach a point where you have to do drastic things to earn gold since max is 65000. What I do is I sell back a ship and re-buy it, therefore I can earn more gold. Yes it isn't really earning it, but that illusion helps make it feel like I"m accomplishing something.