Is Gambling Christian
Gambling is, to many, a scheme to escape labor. Is Gambling Really a Sin Some Christians argue that gambling does no harm. However, the scripture is clear that this activity is sinful. The Biblical Reasons To Reject Gambling. Historically, the Bible preaching church has long looked upon gambling as incompatible with the Christian life. Early Church pastor, Tertullian said, 'If you say that you are a Christian when you are a dice-player, you say you are what you are not, because you are a partner with the world.' Many Christians wonder if gambling is a sin and what the Bible has to say about it. While casinos, lotteries, and other of today's get rich quick games aren't specifically mentioned within the Bible, God has still warned against the temptation. Most often when people gamble it is because they become addicted to the love of money.
Article ID: DE209 By: Rex M. Rogers
Summary
If baseball once was America’s national pastime, it’s been replaced by a $550 billion-per-year obsession — gambling. Gambling feeds the self-indulgent, instant-gratification mindset that has plagued America in recent decades. Beneath its glittery surface lurk the parallel tragedies of increasing addiction and a decreasing devotion to spirituality. Most Christian churches have been silent about gambling. Scripture is not. Even without a direct commandment, “Thou shalt not gamble,” the Bible offers numerous principles that militate against the practice. Informed Christians will challenge such social evils as state-sponsored gambling and the use of gambling for fundraising. Gambling is a bankrupt abandonment of reason and religion, and in the long run everyone loses.
Mark Twain shrewdly observed that “the best throw at dice is to throw them away.”1 Americans no longer agree. Gambling is the newest Great American Pastime.
State lotteries began in 1964 with New Hampshire, and now bring in $30 billion per year in 37 states and the District of Columbia.2 Some 55 million Americans play lotteries once per month, spending $88 million per day — more than they spend per day on groceries.3
What began as a trickle with state lotteries became a flash flood in 1988 when Native American tribes began taking advantage of the Federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which permitted them to operate casinos on tribal lands. Nearly 300 Indian-run casinos now exist in 28 states with 186 of the 557 federally recognized tribes participating. About 30 casinos are opening per year,4 and additional tribes are vying for a stake in what some have called “the new buffalo.”5
Gambling expenditures now top $550 billion per year.6 That’s more money than Americans spend per year on films, books, amusements, and music entertainment combined. It’s about $1.5 billion per day or an increase of roughly 3,000 percent in the past 20 years.7
With the exception of horse and dog racing, gambling is increasing in every form. Riverboat, dockside, and other off-shore gambling enterprises, including cruise ships, are being proposed in several states as “limited” gambling.
Off-track, parimutuel, jai alai, keno, and video betting are also increasing. So are raffles and bingo. Business Week observed that gambling outlets are becoming “almost ubiquitous” as “mob-affiliated bookies and numbers runners are being supplanted by state governments, charitable and religious groups, and blue-chip entertainment-leisure conglomerates that say they’re in the ‘gaming’ business.”8
THE VICE OF CHOICE
Some 95 percent of American citizens have gambled at some time in their lives. About 82 percent have played the lottery, 75 percent have played slot machines, 50 percent have bet on horse or dog races, 44 percent have gambled with cards, and 34 percent gamble via bingo. Approximately 26 percent have bet on sports events. About 74 percent of the American adult population have gambled in casinos. Polls indicate that at least 89 percent of the American population approves of casino gambling.9
The acceptance of gambling into everyday life is a historic shift in cultural philosophy. University of Nevada, Las Vegas, professor William N. Thompson observed that “the era of expanded legalized gambling has coincided with a trend toward increased permissiveness in society. There certainly is a connection between attitudes about lifestyle, sex, pornography — even abortion and occasional drug use — and attitudes toward gambling. The notion that government has no business in our bedrooms relates to the notion that government has no business telling us how to spend our leisure time and our own money as long as we are doing so without coercion or harm to others.”10
The ethic of self-denial, saving, and capital accumulation is being replaced with a hedonistic consumerism, what Christopher Lasch called the “culture of narcissism.”11 Deferred gratification is shelved in favor of instant demand. Americans want more, and they want it now.
Many Americans no longer work for future earthly or spiritual rewards. They only consume and receive less and less satisfaction from it.12
The philosophy of gambling undercuts one’s ability and desire to defer gratification in order to accomplish a goal. Individual enterprise, thrift, effort, and self-denial are set aside for chance gain, immediate satisfaction, and self-indulgence. In this sense, gambling exemplifies a reversal of American values.13
THIRD TIME’S A CHARM?
Whittier Law School gambling expert I. Nelson Rose believes a third wave of legalized gambling is washing over the United States.14 The first wave began in colonial America when lottery management companies took their place among the largest early-nineteenth-century businesses.15 A healthy economy together with lottery corruption contributed to the decline of legal lotteries by the 1820s.
The second wave of legal gambling began when Southern states looked for revenue after the Civil War. Gambling was a major diversion in late-nineteenth-century Western gold and silver mining camps. Legalized gambling’s second wave of popularity began losing strength in the 1880s with the Louisiana State Lottery scandal (in which local lottery fundraisers evolved into mail fraud and criminal interstate commerce involving corrupt government officials, intrigue, and murder). By 1894, state lotteries were condemned by law, and 36 states adopted antilottery text in their state constitutions.16
While gambling has been legal in (and largely limited to) Nevada since 1931, the third wave of legalized gambling in the United States began in 1964 with the inception of the New Hampshire State Lottery. By 1984, a majority of states had legalized lotteries.17
Bingo was legalized in 1937 in Rhode Island. Some 46 states, the District of Columbia, and all the Canadian provinces now have legalized bingo.18
Horse race betting is legal in 42 states and all Canadian provinces, dog race betting in 19 states, and jai alai games in four states. All 10 Canadian provinces and 48 American states now permit some form of legal gambling. By the year 2000, some experts have predicted that 40 percent of U.S. households will be participating in legalized commerical gambling.19
Legalized commercial gambling is now growing at breakneck speed, spurred by cash–hungry governments, gambling industry promotion of “gaming” as entertainment, and the appeal of new, high-tech video gambling. Some antigambling counselors believe that “decades of church–sponsored gambling [have] also tended to lend approval to games of chance.”20
Only two states still maintain a no-legal-gambling policy: Hawaii and Utah. Hawaii debates the matter periodically. While 60 percent of Hawaiians polled favor a lottery, enough citizens are concerned about damaging the state’s image as an island paradise that lotteries and other commercial gambling are consistently rejected.21
Eugene Martin Christiansen, a gambling industry consultant, believes America’s new love affair with gambling “is part of a fundamental change that is irreversible at this point because the country is changing with fewer people going to church, more older people with time and money on their hands, and especially, with state lottery advertising campaigns that make it seem that buying lottery tickets is almost a patriotic duty.”22
LOSING THE BET
Gambling is a spiritual and financial timebomb in a pretty package, and no demographic group is immune to the social pathologies associated with it.23 Compulsive gambling is increasing rapidly in all population groups, even among teens.
The fastest growing “addiction” among high school and college-age young people is problem gambling, with as much as seven percent or 1.3 million teens considered addicted. Dr. Durand Jacobs, a pioneer in the treatment of problem gambling, believes the rate among teens is at least 10 percent, about twice the rate among adults.24
Howard Schaffer, director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Addiction Studies, predicted, “We will face in the next decade or so more problems with youth gambling than we’ll face with drug use.”25 The National Institute of Mental Health notes that “addiction” to gambling is growing fastest among teenagers.26 Suicide rates are twice as high among teenagers with gambling problems,27 and teenagers are nearly two-and-one-half times as likely as adults to become compulsive gamblers.28
Durand Jacobs noted that “public understanding of gambling is where our understanding of alcoholism was some 40 or 50 years ago. Unless we wake up soon to gambling’s darker side, we’re going to have a whole new generation lost to this addiction.”29
From lotteries in the 1960s to casinos in the 1990s, the gambling industry has grown more rapidly and more explosively than any business in American history. Legalized commercial gambling is now one of the largest industries in the U.S. leisure economy.30
IT’S NOT IN THE CARDS
While the tidal wave of legalized commercial gambling has engulfed the country, the Christian community has greeted this development with a deafening silence. A few local battles have taken place, and during the past two years, Christian leaders such as Gary Bauer, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, and Ralph Reed have begun to speak out, but so far gambling has garnered very little national attention.
Several reasons may explain why Christians have been rather slow to respond to the spread of legalized commercial gambling:
1.) The conservative Christian “agenda” is packed, focusing on issues like abortion, pornography, crime, gun control, sex education, creationism, “family values,” and prayer in public schools.
2. Conservative Christians, particularly those who call themselves fundamentalists, have been historically reticent to “get involved in politics.”
3.There are no direct biblical commands declaring gambling a sin. And unlike narcotics, which exercise an immediate negative impact upon the user, the harmful effects of habitual gambling take longer to reveal themselves. Moral arguments against gambling are, therefore, more difficult to develop. In a recent survey, George Barna found that only 28 percent of “born again” Christians believe casinos should be illegal in the United States.31
4.) Christians are just as materialistic as everyone else. The lure of quick riches entices Christians to gamble too.
For these reasons as well as others, theological disapproval does not always translate to social or political opposition. Christians seem to be just as uninformed and unconcerned as everyone else.
THUS SAITH THE LORD
There is no “Eleventh Commandment” in the Bible saying “Thou shalt not gamble.” However, gambling violates at least five doctrines of Scripture: the sovereignty of God, stewardship, covetousness, brotherly love, and God’s instruction not to be brought under the power of anything.
Sovereignty of God
Belief in luck and belief in a sovereign God are mutually exclusive, for if an omniscient, omnipotent Creator God exists then luck makes no sense. Things don’t “just happen.” Nothing — including the secondary causes operative in the universe (the “laws” of nature and human choices) — happens outside of God’s will and disposition. So belief in God not only dispells any idea of luck, it also rejects any idea of chance as a determining factor in natural events or people’s destiny. “Depending upon luck and chance is a philosophy which deifies an impersonal view of life and of reality.”32 Any trust in luck rather than God is therefore a form of idolatry.
What appears to be chance to the finite human mind is known to a sovereign God. Casting of lots, for example, is a biblical illustration not of gambling (for no money or other value was placed at risk in hopes of greater gain) but of individuals trusting a sovereign God to direct the “chance” disposition or direction of the lay of the lots. People used “chance” to understand God’s will. Their faith was not in chance but in God. But belief in chance as fate stands in direct opposition to a purposeful creation, ordered and directed by the Sovereign God of the universe. Chance without God is the personification of anarchy and nihilism. God controls, not chance (Amos 3:6).33
The idea that events are ultimately disposed merely by chance is akin to superstition. Pagan superstition is a violation of God’s will. Worshipping the gods of luck and chance is an offense to His character. Gambling is a kind of “secularized divination.”34 It promotes a world view in direct contradiction to biblical Christianity.
Stewardship
God says in Proverbs that “he who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment” (12:11). People often chase fantasies, yielding to the lure of quick riches, the “something-for-nothing” enchantment. But God gives people time, talent, and treasure with an expectation of accountability (Matt. 25:14–30). The Bible teaches that we are to use our God–given wealth to support our families, God’s work, the government, and the needy.
Gambling can undermine the foundations of Christian stewardship — work, rationality, and responsibility. But work is both a command and a gift of God (2 Thess. 3:6–12). And reason is an essential part of being human. “Irresponsibility is man’s abdication of his humanity. We are made to be moral decision-making creatures.”35
Covetousness
Gambling feeds covetousness, the opposite of God’s call for contentment (Phil. 4:11–12). It masquerades as harmless fun while it eventually sucks the dollars and sometimes the life out of those who embrace it (1 Tim. 6:6–10). The basis of all antigambling legislation is the necessity of curbing or controlling covetousness, the very natural and selfish desire to get something for nothing.36
Love Thy Neighbor
Gambling creates a condition in which one person’s gain is necessarily many other persons’ loss. As such, gambling militates against brotherly love, justice, and mercy (Matt. 22:37–40; Mic. 6:8).
Gambling substitutes love of self or love of money for love of neighbor (Rom. 14:21; 15:1; 1 Tim. 6:6–10). Martin Luther said that “money won by gambling is not without self seeking and love of self is not without sin.”37 Gambling, unlike legitimate business practices wherein both parties gain, creates a condition in which individuals are willingly duped of their resources in a something-for-nothing exchange.
To take from one’s neighbor in an unfair exchange is not love, to set up a system in which those least able to afford it lose their livelihood is not justice, and to continue operating a system that exploits human weakness while promoting personal pleasure and profit over others’ pain and loss is not mercy. While it is true that the legitimate marketplace can operate without regard for the Christian value of love of neighbor, this is not an essential and unavoidable character of business. In gambling, love of neighbor is not only impossible, it is systematically suppressed.
Mastery of the Will
Gambling is potentially habitual, what Pascal called a “fatal fascination,” like a moth’s fascination for the candle.38 Some even label the problem an addiction. Yet God makes it clear in His Word that Christians are not to allow their minds or bodies to be mastered by anything other than the Holy Spirit of God (1 Cor. 6:12). Anything else leads to idolatry.
The Bible’s doctrines pertaining to the use of money indicate that morality and money are not mutually exclusive. God reveals the former so that mankind will know how to use the latter. Too often, though, people want the money without the morality.
Since governments are comprised of people, it should come as no surprise that they want money without morality too. In gambling, that’s exactly what they’ve got.
GOVERNMENT’S GOLDEN GOOSE
Governments are looking for easy money, so they sell their souls for a promise of riches. Whether government should enhance its revenues with gambling monies — the losses of its citizens — is a moral question, not just an economic one, no matter why people gamble. So far, except for a few scattered antigambling victories, money has bested morality in most contests for legislative hearts.
State government-sponsored gambling turns state government into a huckster. And legalization is followed by legitimation. Gambling is being socially legitimized by virtue of its governmental sanction. A one-time social evil is being transformed into acceptable social policy.
Governments facing budget deficits and antitax sentiment see gambling revenues as a painless panacea. States promote gambling, then use the revenues as a supplementary, “voluntary” tax. Gambling interests sell commercial gambling as a way of salvaging Rust Belt industrial cities.39 Then they lure legislators and voters by associating gambling with some noble purpose like public education or better roads. Such arguments provide a politically palatable “moral justification” that helps dilute or mute opposition to gambling.
In practice, however, state legislatures time and again have refused to stick to promises of earmarked funds. Instead they let gambling revenues pay for promised public works and use general funds for other purposes. Gambling revenues become just another part of the state’s giant budgetary pie.40
In the United States, gambling operations vigorously promote their games, and states are counted among the owners and promoters. There are no governmental restrictions on advertising, free alcohol as a stimulus to gambling, or access to credit on gambling casino premises.41
States do not simply accommodate peoples’ desire to gamble. They encourage gambling. In doing so, states foster superstitious, magical thinking.42
Today, gambling is no longer just a periodic, if questionable, leisure activity fulfilling the purposes of a few individuals. Gambling is being changed into routine behavior that serves the economic ends of casino operators and state governments. The gambling industry now provides a transformed set of more aggressive, commercially profitable games aimed at a mass public.
State-sanctioned gambling has become little more than a set of gambling opportunities designed to produce maximum losses from the maximum number of people. Government has a vested interest in the losses of consumers. This together with the fact that, with a very few exceptions, no wealth is created by gambling means that state governments are no longer acting as representatives of the public interest.43 State governments have joined the gambling industry in mass civic exploitation.
Crapped Out
Gambling associates itself with a number of social problems and pathologies, including alcohol and drug abuse, prostitution, violent crime, embezzlement and bankruptcy, theft, spouse and child abuse, and pornography and obscenity. This is why gambling is not a “victimless crime.” What appears to be harmless play with one’s own money becomes a destructive and costly influence on the person and the community.
Gambling sows the seeds of its own demise. Gambling begets gambling. It produces no new wealth.44 The gambling industry is by nature parasitical and predatory. It cannibalizes rather than nurtures local economies and, worse, gambling operations frequently do so while claiming to benefit some universal good like education, economic progress, the environment, or the elderly. Gambling is a fiscal shell game.
So it’s something of a social and political disgrace to see America’s state and local governments buy into and promote gambling with the enthusiasm of pit bosses. It further gambles away the credibility of state and local governments at a time when Americans’ confidence in the efficacy of political institutions is already low.45
Gambling creates so many negative side-effects that businesses will eventually be forced to look for nongambling states. Economist John Warren Kindt predicts that long-term, gambling-free states will enjoy proportionately fewer personal and business bankruptcies, stronger financial institutions, more vibrant economies, and better tourist, community, and business environments.46
I. Nelson Rose says that legalized gambling tends to self-destruct. He believes that a cheating or corruption scandal will trigger the next gaming industry crash in about 35 years.47
CasiNO!
A backlash may already be starting. During the past three years, gambling proponents have lost more initiatives than they’ve won. In particular, the National Association against Legalized Gambling, directed by Tom Grey, has been instrumental in winning some 47 statewide and congressional referenda and legislative battles in 27 different states, losing only three. In 1996, only one of seven statewide gambling referenda passed.48
To turn the tide of legalized commercial gambling, I suggest that Christians (and other concerned citizens) work to do the following:
1.) Eliminate state government sponsorship and promotion of all forms of gambling. This can be accomplished in one of two ways: (1) States could privatize state lotteries, thereby getting states out of the ownership and advertising of gambling activities. (2) States could suspend state lotteries, lottos, and other forms of state-sponsored gambling, including race tracks.
Through astute state budgeting, legislators would be required to replace revenues currently generated by state gambling enterprises. In most cases, other state programs will either need to be eliminated or supported by tax increases because states have become dependent on gambling revenues. This, of course, can be politically painful. But it is no more so than the stressful political maneuvering and consensus building necessary to change or eliminate any other program already in the budget.
Even raising taxes is more acceptable than maintaining state lotteries and other gambling operations. It’s certainly more equitable than the support and promotion of games that pilfer money from the electorate.
2.) Stop state-approved expansion of legalized commercial gambling. At a minimum, state legislatures should appoint state gambling commissions charged with evaluating the impact of gambling, in particular casino gambling, on the state population and economy. Such commissions should seek independently generated data, not just information readily provided by the gambling industry.
A state ban on further approval and development of casino gambling would provide time for public and private agencies to study the economic and social impact of gambling on communities. It would also protect communities from the unrepresentative and unfair legal leverage available to Native American tribal groups under the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
3.) Legally clarify the 1988 Federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. States should work toward preserving state and local authority as well as Native American citizens’ rights to free and fair access to the political process. Casino gambling discussions too frequently become entangled in a threefold cultural and legal web. One part is political correctness. A second is the legal morass enveloping Native American tribal sovereignty. And a third is latent public guilt for the sins, real and perceived, of 300 years of “American Indian policy.”
4.) Reduce nonprofit gambling for fundraising. This can be done fairly and in a manner that furthers the public interest. But the primary responsibility for reducing the use of gambling for fundraising lies with nonprofit organizations, including churches.
A nonprofit organization’s most precious resource is its reputation, for it is the public’s appreciation for a well-conceived mission that gets results that creates support for a cause. Gambling operations undercut the nonprofit organization’s humanitarian reputation and, therefore, diminish the organization’s moral credibility in the community it serves.
A CELEBRATION OF IRRATIONALITY
Gambling demands that the gambler abandon reason. It’s a venue of superstition, a religion-free religion. In a time when valuelessness is valued, gambling fits. In a culture that believes the universe began by chance and that existence and morality are nothing more than the “luck of the draw,” gambling is oddly logical. Gambling is the perfect postmodern pastime.
Gambling is correlated with social pessimism. It flourishes in cultures that no longer believe they can influence their present, much less their future. Gambling blossoms from a mood of despair, powerlessness, and hopelessness. Life is chance — a crap shoot.
Gambling is a metaphor for the current cultural Zeitgeist. It grows out of our cultural philosophy. Americans believe in a world of undefined chaos.
Every civilization in the past 500 years has sought to curtail gambling or its effects.49 Why do Americans think we’re immune to the hazards of gambling? It is because Americans have embraced moral relativism, the postmodern belief in “mobile truths.” Increasing numbers of Americans no longer believe in absolute truth, in right and wrong. If God exists, He must not have anything to say to people. They reject Him, they reject His Word, and they reject His morality. The only thing left is uncertainty — and luck.
For many Americans gambling has become a surrogate religion; a pathological hope; a concession to life based on luck; an admission that there is nothing to life but determinism, fatalism, nihilism.
But gambling is rabbit’s foot religion. It’s postmodern paganism. Gambling asks people to play the odds, and always, in the long run, gambling wins.
Rex M. Rogers is president of Cornerstone College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and author of Seducing America: Is Gambling a Good Bet? (Baker Book House, 1997).
Why Is Gambling Against Christianity
NOTES
1Norman L. Geisler with Thomas A. Howe, Gambling a Bad Bet: You Can’t Win for Losing in More Ways Than You Can Imagine (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1990), 73.2William N. Thompson, Legalized Gambling: A Reference Handbook (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1994), 3.3John Wheeler, “Losers,” Charisma, September 1997, 71.4“Too Many Casinos,” Grand Rapids Press, 6 October 1997, sect. A; Joseph P. Shapiro, “America’s Gambling Fever,” U.S. News and World Report, 15 January 1996, 59; and Bob Kolasky, “Issues of the Week: Fighting Long Odds,” www.Intellectualcapital.com, 11 September 1997, 2. 5Eugene Martin Christiansen and Will E. Cummings, “Double-Edged Growth,” International Gaming and Wagering Business Magazine, 1 August 1995, 31–32.6Kolasky, 1; and Martin Koughan, “Easy Money,” Mother Jones, July–August 1997, 32.7Frank Rich, “America on Big Bender with Gaming,” Las Vegas Sun, 10 May 1996, sect. B. Christiansen and Cummings, 31–32.8Chris Welles, “America’s Gambling Fever,” Business Week, 24 April 1989, 112–13.9Report of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Michigan Gaming, Robert J. Danhof, chairman, April 1995, 15. Shapiro, 55.10Thompson, 13.11Vicki Abt, James F. Smith, and Eugene Martin Christiansen, The Business of Risk: Commercial Gambling in Mainstream America (Lawerence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1985), 22.12Ibid., 198–99.13Ibid., 22.14James Popkin with Katia Hetter, “America’s Gambling Craze,” U.S. News and World Report, 14 March 1994, 46; Thompson, 6.15Report of the Commission on the Review of the National Policy Toward Gambling, Charles H. Morin, chairman (Washington, D. C., 15 October 1976), 18–107.16Rufus King, Gambling and Organized Crime (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1969), 74.17In 1969, Canada followed suit by changing its criminal code to allow lotteries and charitable gambling. (Thompson, 8.) Mexico is also flirting with expanded legalized gambling. Casino gambling is being considered in at least 10 major cities and resort destinations. While a national lottery, horse racing, sports betting, and cockfighting have been available for years, the Mexican Congress outlawed casino gambling in the 1930s. Most Mexicans don’t want expanded legalized casinos, however. A poll in The Mexico CityReforma indicated that 68 percent oppose, and 30 percent favor, casinos. See Hayes Ferguson, “Mexico Officials Debate Legalizing Casino Gambling to Aid Economy,” The Grand Rapids Press, 12 November 1995, sect. A.18Christiansen and Cummings, 31–32; Thompson, 3.19Thompson, 3.20“Gambling Addiction Near Epidemic,” The Bottom Line on Alcohol in Society (journal published by the Alcohol Research Information Service, Lansing, MI) 14 (Spring 1993): 1, 7.21Matthew Brown, “Gaming Industry Has No Chance in Utah,” The Grand Rapids Press, 5 May 1996, sect. A.22Cited in David Johnston, Temples of Chance (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 20.23Adolescent Compulsive Gambling: The Hidden Epidemic (The Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, n.d.)24Ricardo Chavira, “The Rise of Teenage Gambling,” Time (25 February 1991), 78. J. Taylor Buckley, “Nation Raising ‘A Generation of Gamblers,’” USA Today (5 April 1995), 1A.25Report of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission, 15; Laurel Shaper Walter, “More Teens Play Games of Chance,” The Christian Science Monitor, 25 April 1990, 16.26Report of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission, 15.27“Teen Gambling: Hidden Habit, Public Problem,” USA Today, 5 April 1995, sect. A. This research established correlation between gambling and suicide, but not causality.28Chavira, 78. 29Ibid., 78.30Christiansen and Cummings, 31–32.31Ron Reno, “Gambling with America,” Christian American, July-August 1996, 25.32Larry Braidfoot, Gambling: A Deadly Game (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1985), 182.33R. H. Charles, Gambling and Betting: A Study Dealing with Their Origins and Their Relation to Morality and Religion (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1924), 61.34James Hastings, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1913), 163.35Lycurgus M. Starkey, Jr., Money, Mania, and Morals: The Churches and Gambling (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1964), 112.36Francis Emmett Williams, Lotteries, Law, and Morals (New York: Vantage Press, 1958), 76.37Lyaugus M. Starkey, Jr., Money Mania and Morals: The Churches and Gambling, [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1964], 37.38Starkey, 27.39This is one of the central premises of Robert Goodman, The Luck Business: The Devastating Consequences and Broken Promises of America’s Gambling Explosion (New York: The Free Press, 1995).40Thompson, 42.41See Rex M. Rogers, Seducing America: Is Gambling a Good Bet? (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1997), 91–92; Abt, Smith, and Christiansen, 76–77.42Charles T. Clotfelter and Philip J. Cook, Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 70.43Abt, Smith, and Christenson, 37, 174–75, 213–15.44Goodman, 163–66.45This point has been well known to political scientists for more than two decades. Most recently it was highlighted on Wolf Blitzer, Inside Politics, Weekend, CNN, 10 January 1998.46John Warren Kindt, “The Negative Impacts of Legalized Gambling on Businesses,” Business Law Journal 4 (Spring, 1994): 93-124.47Popkin and Hotter, 4648“Legalized Gambling on a Losing Streak,” http:// www.Iquest.net/cpage/ncalg/gambling.html (2 June 1997), 1–4.49Charles, 10.
July 25, 1991
“Gambling is inevitable.” So began the introduction to the final report of the Commission on the Review of National Policy Toward Gambling. “No matter what is said or done by advocates or opponents of gambling in all its various forms, it is an activity which is practiced, or endorsed, by a substantial majority of Americans.”
No doubt that statement is true. Most Americans like to gamble now and again, and most of those who don’t have no qualms about those who do. The Commission issued its final report in 1976 after three years of research. The report contains two interesting—and seemingly contradictory—statements. First, it found that “most Americans gamble because they like to, and they see nothing wrong with it. This being so, they see no real distinction between going to the track to place a bet and backing their favorite horse with the local bookmaker.”
Second, the commission noted that although gambling is practiced by two-thirds of the American people and approved by perhaps 80 per cent of the population, it nevertheless “contributes more than any other single enterprise to police corruption in their cities and towns and to the well-being of the nation’s criminals.”
There in just two quotations is the whole debate concerning gambling. Like every good debate, there are two sides to the question. One side asks, “How can any activity which receives the approval of 80 percent of the people be considered wrong?” The other side replies, “How can we give our approval to any activity which so obviously opens the door to personal and civic corruption?”
There are a few questions about gambling which must be answered. What does the Bible say about gambling? Why should legalized gambling concern the Christian? Is gambling always wrong?
To be sure, Christians have not always agreed on the answers to those questions. In fact, there are three schools of thought on the question of gambling and the Christian faith. The first is the position which sees gambling on a small scale as a harmless social activity. This is the position of the Catholic Church. The second is the position which sees no great harm in gambling but opposes legalization on a major scale. Many mainline denominations take this position along with many individual Catholics. The third is the position which views gambling as a moral evil and therefore opposes it any form, public or private. Most evangelicals take the third view.
Having said that, it must be admitted that gambling is fairly popular among church members across the board. Tom Watson, Jr., in his recent book Don’t Bet On It (Regal Books, 1987) reports that, when asked, 8 out of 10 Roman Catholics classify themselves as gamblers. Gambling among Jews is pegged at 77 per cent, followed by Presbyterians and Episcopalians at 74 per cent, Methodists at 63 per cent, and Baptists at 43 per cent. Among those calling themselves nondenominational, 33 per cent say they gamble now and then. Watson notes that this last group includes the traditionally conservative Bible churches. As he says, “that figure sounds low when compared to the denominations, but it means that one out of every three conservative Christians may have no scruples about gambling.” (p.64)
Therefore, because Christians have not always agreed on gambling, it is worthwhile for us to examine the issue of gambling from a Christian perspective.
I. A Definition Of Gambling
The issue is more important than it might seem. It is sometimes said that buying life insurance or investing in the stock market is a form of gambling. If that is true, then most of us are guilty of gambling or (and this is what is intended by the argument) gambling is not wrong. Such a viewpoint can only be sustained by an imprecise, fuzzy definition.
The dictionary defines gambling as “to bet money on the outcome of a game, contest, or other event,” “to play a game of chance for money or other stakes.” Another more complicated definition says that gambling is “wagering money—or something of value—on an uncertain event whose outcome is dependent either wholly on chance or partly on chance and partly on skill.” Those definitions have in common two key elements: The first is the element of chance or luck. The second is the wagering of money.
However, those definitions leave out a key element which other definitions include: Gambling is “participation in any game of chance in which a prize is offered to the winners at the losers’ loss.” That is very important and must not be overlooked. True gambling means that for me to win you must lose or for you to win I must lose. It is this principle which is behind all forms of gambling—from the friendly Friday night poker game to the glittery casinos of Las Vegas. If the winner’s prize doesn’t come at the expense of the loser, then it’s not really gambling. Here, then, is a comprehensive definition: “Gambling is the betting of money—or something of value—on the outcome of an artificially created chance or uncertain event, whereby the prize money is not determined by value, service or goodwill but rather by chance, in such a way that the gain of the winners is at the expense of the losers.”
Therefore, there are three key elements in the definition of gambling: First, the betting of money or something else of value. Second, the winner is determined by a chance or uncertain event. Third, the gain of the winners is at the expense of the losers.
Such a definition is broad enough to include traditional casino gambling, the Friday night poker game, bingo, keno, raffles, lotteries, pari-mutuel betting, and other more exotic forms of wagering. It is narrow enough to exclude things like life insurance and investing in the stock market.
(Incidentally, the primary difference between gambling and life insurance or investing in the stock market is that the first involves artificially-created risks while the latter two involve risks inherent in life. That is, everyone is going to die. That is a determined factor; the only undetermined factor is when a given person will die. Life insurance does not create the risk of death, but merely spreads the risk out among many people. Likewise, the stock market will go up or down depending on various conditions in the economy. That is a determined factor; the only undetermined factor is when and by how much. Investing in the stock market does not create the risk of economic change, but merely spreads it among many people. Planning in light of the future certainty of death is not gambling nor is investing in view of future economic change.)
In light of the definition, it should be clear that horse racing is not gambling. Likewise, playing bingo is not gambling. But betting money on the outcome of a horse race or on the outcome of a bingo game is gambling. It is gambling because the winner of a horse race is an uncertain event and the winner of a bingo game is determined by chance. It is gambling because money is wagered. It is gambling because the winner’s prize is paid out of the loser’s money. The key point is that the money to pay the winner has to come from somewhere and the only somewhere it can come from is from the pockets of those who wagered and lost. Las Vegas is not, as is often claimed, a winner’s town. It is a loser’s town, kept in business by losers, kept running for losers. If everyone won, or if even most people won, or if anything other than a tiny minority won, Las Vegas would go out of business tomorrow. It is built on loser’s money. The casinos pay off the occasional winners and pocket the rest of the money.
To make the matter perfectly clear, the traditional evangelical opposition to gambling centers on the issue of money. It has nothing to do with horse racing, bingo, card playing, dice rolling, keno, roulette, poker, black-jack, football, baseball, basketball, or other games considered in and of themselves. In fact, the Christian view of life suggests that games and competition are healthy for the body and good for the soul. It is when those various events are used as avenues for gambling that the Christian becomes concerned.
II. Gambling And The Christian Faith
It is worth noting that the heading does not say “Gambling and the Bible.” The difference is significant for the Bible has relatively little to say about gambling. There are various references to the casting of lots in the Old Testament which may be similar to rolling dice. (Joshua 14:2, I Chronicles 25:7, Proverbs 16:33) However, the purpose of casting lots was to determine the Lord’s will in a given matter, not to make a financial gain. The only New Testament reference to anything that approaches modern gambling is the account of the Roman soldiers casting lots for Jesus’ garments at the foot of the cross. (Matthew 27:35)
Since the Bible does not deal with the issue directly, we are forced to look at the larger context of the Bible. When we do that, three major issues come to the surface.
1. The Issue Of Chance Versus The Providence Of God
Chance is a total absence of design or predictability. It is the lack of a purposeful plan. According to the dictionary, it is “the quality which causes unexpected, random, or unpredictable events.” Closely associated with chance is the concept of luck. Luck is what happens when unpredictable events turn out in your favor. Luck, then, is chance on your side. Bad luck is chance going against you. A third important term is fate: The impersonal forces at work behind the events of life.
All gambling is based on a belief in chance, luck, or fate. It is the belief there is some force out there called fate which randomly causes winners and losers. When you hit the daily double, luck was on your side. When the person next to you gets the ace you needed, luck was with him and against you.
All true gamblers are people of deep faith. Otherwise there would be no reason to gamble. The crucial point is that their faith is not in a personal God who orders the universe according to his will, but rather in some impersonal, random force which causes one man to get lucky while another goes bust.
It is a kind of Calvinism turned inside out. The true gambler believes. Down deep in his heart he really, truly believes. Not in anyone or anything (except maybe himself), but he believes. That’s why he goes back to the window for another $2 exacta. That’s why he antes up another ten dollars. That’s why he puts another quarter in the slot machine. That’s why he says “hit me” to the dealer. The true gambler is a true believer. Lady luck may yet smile on him.
How foreign all of this is to biblical faith in God. In the first place, there is no such thing as “chance” from a biblical point of view. Consider the words of Ephesians 1:11, “In him we were chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.” Or consider Hebrews 1:3 which speaks of Christ who “upholds all things by the word of his power.” In Isaiah 44:24-25, the Lord speaks of His own sovereign control: “I am the Lord, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by himself. Who foils the signs of the false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise.” In this context, the false prophets, diviners, and wise men are those who claim to understand the future. The Lord overthrows them because the future is in his hands, not in the hands of chance or luck or fate.
In that light, we ought to ponder the meaning of Proverbs 16:33, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Which translated means, “Men can roll the dice, but God is in charge of how the numbers come up.”
Quite simply, the gambler believes in a false god he calls fate, luck or chance. That god is false because it does not exist. What seems to be chance is actually the sovereign plan of God being worked out on earth. Thus, gambling is based on a pagan premise and is itself a pagan activity.
It may be objected that most gamblers do not think of things in this light. What that really means is that most gamblers do not think. If they thought about what they were doing, they wouldn’t do it. I repeat. A true gambler is a true believer. At the moment he lays down his bet, he is a believer, not a thinker. His faith is misplaced and the object of his faith does not even exist, but the faith is real nonetheless.
(In saying that the gambler does not think, I do not mean to imply that skill is not involved in games like poker and blackjack or that skill is not involved in knowing how to play the ponies. Quite obviously, a great deal of skill is involved. There are many people who play poker poorly and few who consistently play it well. My point is that few gamblers think through the philosophical foundations of what they are doing. If they did, most of them would not do it.)
2. The Issue Of Greed Versus Contentment
The reason most gamblers do not stop to think about what they are doing is that they are motivated by greed—here defined as the desire to get something for nothing. That, of course, is what gambling is all about. If you win, you get back the money you put down plus a lot more. You bet a little in hopes of winning a lot. If it’s pari-mutuel betting, you are paid off according to the odds on the horse you chose. It if is poker, you win the pot which includes the money you put in plus the money everyone else put in. If it’s a lottery, you win a designated sum, an amount which is paid for by all those who didn’t win. If it is a football game, you win whatever amount you wagered with the bookie.
According to the Bible, there are three legitimate ways to get money. First, you can work for it. (II Thessalonians 3:10) Second, you can make money through wise investments. (Luke 19:1-27) Third, you can receive a gift or an inheritance. (II Corinthians 12:14) There is no fourth category.
Gambling is not work, for the gambler hopes to make money without working at all. Gambling is not an investment, for the gambler creates an artificial risk hoping to make easy money. Gambling is not a gift, for the money is won from the losers, not given as a gift.
Why, then, do people gamble? They gamble because they think with just a little bit of luck, they will win. And it doesn’t matter whether the prize is ten dollars or ten thousand dollars, the motivating force is still the same. Gambling offers a shortcut, a way to get ahead quickly, a way to make some easy money.
But isn’t it true that most people lose when they gamble? Indeed, most people do lose. Remember, if most people won, the race tracks would close down tomorrow. It is not winning which keeps people coming back, it is rather the hope of winning. The hope is fueled by two things: Blind faith in lady luck and simple greed. True gamblers know they probably won’t win at the craps table. But they might win and even though it’s a long shot, they keep on coming back.
Contrast that with the biblical principle of contentment. Consider Philippians 4:11-13, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”
That last verse is often lifted out of the immediate context and used as a kind of spiritual pep pill. But taken in connection with the preceding verses, the meaning is that the Christian can find contentment in every situation through the power of the indwelling Christ.
Please understand. Contentment does not mean passive acceptance of a bad situation. It does not mean that I shouldn’t try to better myself. Contentment is not the opposite of ambition. But contentment does mean that if I find myself in a difficult position, I will thank God for the opportunity to trust him, I will use every legitimate means to improve the situation, but I will not fall into the trap of trying to take shortcuts in order to find an easy way out.
Let’s face it. It’s awfully tempting to put down five dollars in the office football pool. For one thing, the social pressure to go along is often enormous. For another thing, if fifty people play, that’s $250 you might win. And five dollars isn’t much against $250. What should you do? That’s a decision each person must make for himself. Just remember this: greed is the driving force behind the football pool. You might as well call it what it really is.
The same is true in every other kind of gambling. We’re just kidding ourselves is we think anything else.
Is Gambling Christian In The Bible
Perhaps we should hear again the words of the Apostle Paul in I Timothy 6:6-10.
But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
3. The Issue Of Unconcern Versus Brotherly Love
Here we come close to the heart of the Christian faith. A long time ago a lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied by telling a story about a man who was beaten, robbed, and left for dead by the side of the road. Along came a priest, and then a Levite, who both passed by on the other side. Then a Samaritan happened upon the man, took pity on him, bandaged up his wounds, and took him to an inn. Which man, Jesus asked, was a neighbor of the one who fell into the hands of robbers? The lawyer said, “The one who had mercy on him.” And Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”
We call it the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The message is crystal-clear. Who is my neighbor? My neighbor is anyone in need whose path I cross whose need I am able to meet. There are two parts to that answer. I have to first be aware that my brother has a need and then I have to be able to meet that need. If those two things are true, then the man is my neighbor.
By definition, the gambler when he gambles has no neighbors. He gambles by himself and for himself. His actions are utterly selfish. He knows that for him to win everyone else must lose but he goes ahead and gambles anyway. He is forbidden to care about the losers, for if he did, he would never gamble in the first place. He justifies his unconcern by the fact that he himself has lost money many times—and no doubt will again in the future—so if he gets lucky this time, well, it’s only right and fair. The love of money makes it easy to pass by on the other side.
It is the very opposite of what the Christian faith is all about. “If anyone says, ’I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” (I John 4:20)
Billy Graham On Gambling
What does it all come to? The Christian case against gambling may be stated this way. We believe there is a God who lovingly watches over the affairs of men. He takes a personal interest in even the tiniest details. Because we believe in God, we reject the notion of luck or fate or chance. God has promised to meet the needs of his children. That means that even when things get rough—which they often do—we can trust him to lead us through the valley. Therefore, we reject the greedy shortcuts offered on every hand. Finally, our God has called us to be neighbors to those around us. That means we can never say, “It doesn’t matter where the money comes from.” For the Christian it always matters.
Sometimes we are guilty of thinking that issues like this don’t really matter. Or we think that there is some kind of moral difference between betting a little and betting a lot. On that point, we need to hear the words of Billy Graham.
The appeal of gambling is somewhat understandable. There is something alluring about getting something for nothing. I realize that, and that is where the sin lies. Gambling of any kind amounts to theft by permission. The coin is flipped, the dice are rolled, or the horses run, and somebody rakes in that which belongs to another. The Bible says, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” (Genesis 3:19, KJV) It doesn’t say, “By the flip of a coin shalt thou eat thy lunch.” I realize that in most petty gambling no harm is intended, but the principle is the same as in big gambling. The difference is only the amount of money involved. (The Billy Graham Counselors Manual, p.110)
My conclusion is simple: There are good, solid reasons for our opposition to all forms of gambling—legal and illegal. And although many Christians gamble, we may fairly say that gambling itself rests on principles which are the very opposite of the Christian faith.
III. The Different Kinds Of Gambling
We may for the sake of convenience identify five popular forms of gambling. Each one is based on greed in one form or another. In each form, the greed masquerades as something else.
1. There is pure gambling. By this I refer to games of chance which involve no skill whatsoever. These are games which are played solely for the purpose of betting money. Examples are bingo, keno, lotto, lotteries and raffles. Included in this category would also be slot machines and most dice games.
This is the worst kind of gambling because it is based on pure chance. Therefore, you might call it pure paganism. It is greed masquerading as harmless entertainment.
2. There is gambling on sports events. This has a bit more redeeming value since an actual contest of skill is involved. Yet the game and the gambling are two separate things. It is greed masquerading as team spirit.
3. There is gambling on card games. This, of course, is a big part of the Las Vegas scene but it is also found in many homes when the boys get together on Friday night. It is greed masquerading as friendship.
4. There is gambling on charitable lotteries. A great many good organizations use raffles or lotteries as a way to make money. Typically you buy a ticket for a small price and the winner is chosen at random from a container holding all the tickets sold. The cost of the prize is deducted from the pot and the charity gets the rest.
This presents most of us with a dilemma. If we buy a ticket, we are gambling, no doubt about it. If we don’t we may appear to be saying that we don’t support a worthy organization. But greed is still the motivating factor. The charity knows it can raise more money by appealing to greed than to altruism. They only have a raffle in order to encourage people to give who wouldn’t do so otherwise. It is greed masquerading as charity.
(That comment may seem…well, it may seem uncharitable and I do not mean it to be so. My greater point is this: If you really believe in a cause, you shouldn’t have to be bribed in order to give to it. If you want to give to the American Cancer Society, go right ahead. But don’t wait for a lottery in hopes of winning a new Monte Carlo. I do believe in charitable giving, but I also believe there are better ways to raise money which do not involve gambling.)
I do not have time or space to discuss the question of church-sponsored gambling. It is, however, worthy of note that many Catholic leaders have come out against the practice in recent years and some bishops have banned it altogether. Those who believe in such things as church-sponsored bingo games justify them as harmless diversions which help meet the church budget. The answer to that is that God’s work is to be supported by the sacrificial giving of God’s people and not by raffles, bingo, or lotteries. Furthermore there is no such thing as harmless gambling any more than there is such a thing as harmless greed.
5. There is gambling on horse races. More and more states are using pari-mutuel betting as a way to raise money without raising taxes. It is greed masquerading as good government.
The only point I would add to the above analysis is that not everyone who gambles is a greedy person. No doubt the prospect for financial gain often takes a back seat to other, nobler motivations. A person who bets ten dollars on a football game may truly feel that his relatively small wager is a sign of his school spirit. That fact is true and such a trivial amount of money is not likely to corrupt him or hurt anyone else. The same may be said for those who play bingo for money and the guys who play poker on Friday nights. More often, such small-time gambling is motivated by a simple desire to get together and have fun. The money involved simply makes things more exciting.
My point is that greed is always involved in gambling, even in the nickel and dime variety. Good motives can’t remove the element of greed because greed is inherent in the system. When you decide to buy a raffle ticket, or when you bet twenty dollars on a round of golf, your motives may be noble and true and you may not feel greedy at all. But don’t kid yourself. Greed is always there. It’s built into the system every time you gamble. Take away the temptation to make some easy money and no one would ever gamble again.
IV. The Christian And Gambling
We come at last to the bottom-line question: How should the Christian feel about gambling? I have three suggestions to make.
1. Let us be careful to live in a manner consistent with our Christian faith. That simply means living with the Bible as our guide. Gambling is based on a set of pagan presuppositions, all of which are contrary to the Christian faith. If we truly believe that God has promised to supply all our needs, then we don’t need to gamble in order to help him out.
Am I thereby suggesting that if you put a quarter in a slot machine when you go through Las Vegas on vacation, you have sinned against God? Let me put it this way. The sin may be a small one, but little sins often add up to big transgressions. Concerning that hypothetical quarter, at least this much is true: You have wasted your money and your time. You have also given in to the “get rich quick” temptation. You may also be leading someone else astray by your thoughtless example (and they may spend far more than your prodigal quarter). At the very least, you are acting in a manner inconsistent with the Christian faith you profess to believe. The same is true for spending a dollar to buy a lottery ticket. In both cases, the money is not the issue. Great principles are at stake whether you spend a lot or a little.
2. Let us take our Christian convictions with us into the voting booth. This is always a good principle, but especially on an issue like gambling. Here in Illinois we have horse racing, dog racing and the state lottery. Soon we will have riverboat gambling. Plus we have betting lines in the newspapers and TV shows offering to show us how to beat the spread. There are office pools, bingo games, who knows how many clandestine floating card games. Gambling is big in Illinois. Is it any wonder that organized crime is also big in Illinois? William Webster, then serving as the director of the FBI, said in 1985, “We know of no situation in which legalized gambling was in place where we did not eventually have organized crime.”
Proverbs 16:8 says, “Better is a little with righteousness than a great income with injustice.” This means that some things which a government might do in order to raise additional revenue would be better left undone because of the harm those things might do in society. It is a fundamental principle that the role of government is to uphold the welfare of its citizens. Legalized gambling puts the state in the business of sanctioning, sponsoring, and promoting gambling enterprises. Is that what we want for the state of Illinois?
I suggest that we take our Christian convictions with us into the voting booth. And we ought to vote our convictions whether or not we think we will win.
3. Let us ask God to teach us contentment with what we already have. This is the central issue in the gambling debate. Do we believe that God will take care of all our needs all the time? If the answer is yes, then we don’t need to help him out by gambling. If the answer is no, then we’ve got problems a lot bigger than whether or not to buy a lottery ticket.
But God has promised to take care of his children. And he has done it over and over again. What we truly need, he has promised to supply—through miraculous means if necessary. The least child of God is in better shape than the biggest high roller in Las Vegas. His luck will run out; the promises of God last forever.
In some ways, the question about gambling is like the question about social drinking. It is an area of freedom about which the Bible does not lay down an absolute rule. Yet we are not left without biblical guidelines. There is more than enough clear teaching in the Bible to help us make a wise choice. With that in mind, let us renew our trust in God and leave the gambling to someone else.