You should look into how investment bankers bonus work.

If bonus was actual profit sharing, I would agree that it would be a different thing more akin to a bet, but the bonus is contingent mostly on your personal “performance” with some bail options if company hits the skids, but salary is a bet in that case as well, as you are an at will employee.

My company (USA located) paid less than the entirety of our bonuses because they lack money.

My personal "performance" was fine.

However performance without clear goals is useless, and with clear goals becomes a gamed metric.

They're often not very bet-like in modern practice. One common setup is to have a "bonus target" of let's say 20% of your salary which is usually paid at par; perhaps you might get 25% if you get really great results or 15% if you have some big struggles.