A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE ON LOTTERIES AND GAMBLING

Gambling – Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down
By Howard Reaves

A practical and workable definition of gambling in general is that it is the betting of money on an artificial risk in the hope of excessive gain, far beyond what that investment of money, time or skill could produce. Every word and every phase in this definition is highly important, and should be carefully noted.

What is wrong with gambling? It has long been assumed or claimed that there is nothing inherently wrong or immoral about gambling. Indeed, several plausible arguments have been advanced in behalf of gambling. Here are some of them:

One is that all of life is a gamble, that everything we do involves gambling, including getting married, raising a family, engaging in an occupation, buying insurance and other activities. Although life does involve many uncertainties and some risks, common sense tells us that all of life is not a gamble, that we can and do control our own destiny in many respects, and that we are responsible for our actions.

A second argument in behalf of gambling is that it is merely a form of amusement or recreation and that it is harmless. Perhaps this is true for some people at some times and on some occasions, but it is not universally true. There are many people who cannot afford the heavy losses which they sustain in gambling and who become compulsive gamblers, who cannot stop gambling even though they know that they ought to do so and want to do so.

A third argument for gambling is that it should be legalized to provide needed revenue for the state and to help support such worthy causes as public education, law enforcement and welfare. This argument tends to become convincing in times of economic adversity. However, there are two adequate answers to this argument. One is that the amount of revenue derived from this source is never enough, and that no nation or city has ever been able to gamble its way to prosperity. Furthermore, the end to be achieved does not justify the means used to accomplish it.

Now, lets take a closer look at gambling and see what it involves and what it leads to. Gambling is based upon chance – the spinning of a wheel, the drawing of a card, the outcome of a contest – and it results in the elevation of chance as the determining factor in life. Many times those who roll the dice invoke the blessings of Lady Luck or the Goddess of Chance in their behalf.

A second characteristic of gambling is that it involves the winning and the losing of money -- total winning on the part of some and total losing on the part of others. The number of losers always exceeds the number of winners, but those who engage in gambling ignore this. They hope that they will be lucky and will be winners. Also they ignore one other important fact -- that the machines and the games are so adjusted -- some people say fixed -- that the gamblers win occasionally but that the owners, the proprietors, frequently called the house -- will win most of the time.

Another characteristic of gambling is that it encourages and frequently results in the development of a materialistic attitude toward life – that the getting of money is the most important thing in life. Jesus said: "You cannot serve God and mammon," and the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to Timothy: "The love of money is the root of all evils."

A fourth characteristic of gambling is that it is habit forming. Gambling is addictive, much like smoking tobacco, drinking alcoholic beverages, and taking drugs. Many who begin as occasional gamblers become compulsive gamblers. They cannot stop, even though they try to do so. It is conservatively estimated that there are at least eight million compulsive gamblers in the United States, twenty percent of whom are said to be women and twenty percent teenagers. So widespread has compulsive gambling become that there is now a national organization called "Gamblers Anonymous," quite similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, which seeks to aid those who want to overcome their habit of compulsive gambling.

In looking at gambling it is important to observe not only what gambling is but also what it leads to and results in.

Gambling leads to and results in the wasting and the squandering of one’s financial resources. Often those who suffer the most are those who can least afford it – those in the low or middle-income brackets, senior citizens and others. Following the mounting losses despondency and despair set in. This often results in suicide. And with the need for additional funds to satisfy the compulsive desire for gambling there comes the temptation and the willingness to obtain money in any way possible.

We are now ready to consider gambling from the Christian viewpoint, and when we do, we find that it violates the teachings, which we find both in the New Testament and in the Old Testament. When a Pharisee came to Jesus and asked him: "What is the great commandment?" Jesus answered him: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." And Jesus added a second commandment: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Obviously the gambler does not love God with all his heart, soul and mind. Certainly he does not love his neighbor as himself, because he is interested chiefly in getting for himself the money which his neighbor has.

And when you consider the Ten Commandments, it becomes clear that gambling results in the violation of several of the Commandments, perhaps in some cases as many as five: The first – "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me." The second – "Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them." The sixth – "Thou shalt not kill," or commit murder. The eighth – "Thou shalt not steal." The tenth – "Thou shalt not covet."

Surely any practice or habit which results in the violation of the two great commandments as given by Jesus and in several of the Ten Commandments should have no place in the life of a Christian.

(Howard Reaves is pastor emeritus of the First Baptist Church Mobile)

Home Page