You don't place a wager when playing Luck Be a Landlord, simulated or not.

It's a survival game taking the aesthetic of a slot machine.

I don't think Peggle was considered gambling when it came out, despite taking the aesthetic of a pachinko machine.

Slot machines are survival games, as long as you have money your game session survives. There are many elements to gambling, hazarding some amount of money is an important, but not the most addictive part.

Gambling is the wagering of something of value on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value.

There is no wager in these games.

Arguably there's some fake/virtual/game money that you can wager by deciding which item to buy (or whether to buy at all).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXgPu1lXu84

>you can wager by deciding which item to buy

This is the flimsiest argument I've seen for this so far!

For the record, Luck Be a Landlord's items and symbols do not cost money.

But if we followed your logic, any game that has a shop you can visit multiple times has a gambling feature. That sounds kinda silly to me.

Of course it's silly. I think the game is great and fun (and ... humans can get pretty enthusiastic about fun games ... to the point of putting off other things so they can play said game ... oh noes!), and Play/App stores are their own special hell, so best wishes for the devs, yet ... I think the policy applies to this game. (And likely to others too as you point out.)