The Life Foundations Nexus
GAMBLING
Is gambling a sin? Yes, with one (complex) exception.
First, what is gambling? Gambling is paying money to possibly
get more money. If you paid 1¢ to possibly
get $1,000,000, practically nobody would condemn you for gambling. Why?
Because the real issue is not gambling but extravagance.
Now, what is the one exception
to the ban on gambling? God says you
can gamble as long as you are not extravagant according to the following
explanation of extravagance. What
is extravagance? To put it another way,
when is a bet too big a bet? The answer
varies from person to person but there is a clear way to identify
extravagance. Extravagance is paying
too much for something. What determines
whether a payment is “too much”? Two
things: 1) the thing you are purchasing and 2) whether or not you have
something more important to buy.
Let’s look first at the thing
you are purchasing. The value of what
you are purchasing must be equal to or greater than the amount of money you are
spending. This is a matter of
judgment. Therefore, we cannot lay down
a rule as to how much money you should pay for what. In other words, we cannot lay down a rule as to how much money to
gamble.
Now, let’s look at whether or
not you have something more important to buy.
What is more important than gambling?
At this point, it appears
that any amount of money is “too much” to pay for the possibility of more money. That is, that any amount of money is too
much to gamble. But wait. What about that 1¢ for $1,000,000? If all you have is 1¢, you could buy a
hungry person a piece of bubble gum.
They would not be unthankful.
Someone says, “You might have won the $1,000,000 and, thus, have been
able to buy the hungry person food for the rest of their life.” That is true. What it boils down to, then, is this: which is a better rule in life overall, to provide
immediate help or to gamble and possibly provide future help? The answer is not hard to figure out. Everyone knows that most people lose more at
gambling than they win. Consider how
many people repeatedly fail to win anything playing the lottery. And what about the fact that if most people
did not lose more at gambling than they won the casinos would go out of
business. Therefore, the better rule
in life overall is to provide immediate help.
Therefore, it is better to give money to those in need than it is to
gamble money to obtain even more money to give to those in need.
At this point, it looks like we
have proved that you can never gamble.
Not so. Why? Sometimes you have no opportunity to provide
immediate help. All you can do then is
to provide future help. You can give
money that will buy something that will meet someone’s needs. One of the ways this can be done is to
gamble at a game where some of the proceeds from the game will go to meet the
needs of others. This is only allowable
where items 1 and 2 above have been taken care of and where you have no
opportunity to simply give money to meet the needs of others.
What, then, is the one
exception to the ban on gambling?
Engaging in gambling activity when you have no opportunity to provide
immediate help and where items 1 and 2 above have been taken care of and where
some of the proceeds from the gambling activity will go to meet the needs of
others and where you are in a situation where you have no opportunity to simply
give money to meet the needs of others.