The state of Texas (where I live) is only one of many which run a lottery. The proliferation of these games of chance brings to the forefront questions concerning the morality of gambling. Is gambling a sin? This article will attempt to answer honestly that question by an appeal to scripture. However, before the Bible is discussed in this regard, might I make a few salient points about lotteries in particular?
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- 3 million to 1 of freezing to death
2 million to 1 of being killed by falling out of bed
2 million to 1 of being killed by an animal
350,000 to 1 of being electrocuted
250,000 to 1 of dying in a plane crash
5,000 to 1 of dying in a car crash
Statistically, you are far more likely to be killed by an animal, electrocuted, die by poisoning, die because of surgery, be killed by falling from bed, or even freezing to death, than win all or part of the $250 million prize, according to The Book of Risks by Larry Laudan. Laudan is a former philosophy professor at the University of Hawaii. For example, the odds are:
A number of years ago, in writing on the newly formed Texas Lottery Scratch Off Game, I noted the following:
- The signs are popping up all over town, and presumably, all over the state. TEXAS LOTTERY…Play the Texas Lottery Here! It’s quite a phenomenon. I was in a 7-11 just a few days ago, waiting in a much longer line than usual, to purchase a few groceries. The reason for the long line was the lottery. Almost to a man, the people in front of me bought 1,2,5,6 lottery tickets, all hoping for the possible lucky ticket. It struck me at the time that the behavior of the people could be summed up in one word…greed! Or to use a biblical term, covetousness!
A few observations about the Texas version of the lottery.
On the occasion mentioned above, a lady came in with her little girl, holding in her hand three winning tickets. She and her daughter were dressed in rags, obviously they were very poor. Who knows how many tickets were purchased to get those three winners, the odds state that she would have to had bought 24. Think about it, purchasing 24 tickets at a dollar each to come up with three winners. Her total winnings? six dollars! Makes great sense…Spend $24 to make $6. But the most amazing thing about the whole scene was that after redeeming her tickets, she spent the money buying five more tickets and a candy bar. She most probably had difficulty making ends meet each week, but she had plenty of money to blow on the lottery…
There can be only one explanation for people throwing money away in such large amounts. They are guilty of covetousness! Money has become their God! May it never be so among God’s people.
- Because I find so much of it banal, I consciously ignore mass-market advertising. So it was unusual that a poster should catch my eye as I was running to catch a plane in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. But this one was hard to miss: “Money Does Grow On Trees,” it proclaimed over the picture of a bright, money-green tree, its leaves represented by various denominations of U.S. currency. I walked closer and read at the bottom, “The Illinois State Lottery.”
Bystanders at O’Hare were nearly treated to the spectacle of a grown man assaulting a poster with his briefcase. The lottery itself is bad enough; but for the state of Illinois to disguise officially its whole structure in one alluring five-word poster was just too much.
But why get so upset? After all, lotteries have been around since the American colonists used them to raise money for roads and bridges; today more and more states are adopting them on the grounds they provide harmless entertainment and a painless alternative to taxes.
But I am convinced they are neither harmless nor painless.
In 1984, Americans wagered an estimated $177 Billion — twice as much as they spent on higher education, 15 times what they donated to churches, and over half what they spent on food. Illegal gambling had the biggest share of that total, with 28 percent; but state lotteries ran a close second with 22 percent.
State lottery booths have contributed as well to a fast-spreading epidemic in America. Compulsive gambling is now estimated to claim one million citizens — people like the New Jersey woman who embezzled $38,000 from a bank to buy lottery tickets and the Pennsylvania youth who was so distraught after dropping $6,000 trying for a $2.5 million jackpot that he attempted suicide.
What is especially unfair is that the lottery exploits those who are particularly vulnerable to the promise of a sudden windfall. A Maryland study found that the poorest one-third of state households bought half of all weekly lottery tickets. New York’s busiest lottery agent reports, “Seventy percent of those who buy my tickets are poor, black, or Hispanic.” Another study concluded that the lotteries in Connecticut and Massachusetts were equivalent to a state sales tax of 60 to 90 percent on lower income groups. A Texas Baptist Official put it well: “A lottery is the sale of an illusion to poor people who view it as the only possibility for breaking out of the cycle of poverty they live in.”
And the lottery feeds another illusion: that government can get something for nothing. Politicians turn to lotteries as an easy out, a quick cure-all. This is not only an act of political cowardice, it mocks the integrity of government. If revenues are necessary, legislators should raise taxes. But these are not unfamiliar arguments; certainly they have not created enough outrage for the majority of states to stop being subsidized by the lottery. Nor were they the cause for my outburst at O’Hare.
No, what I found so shocking was not just the promotion of the lottery, but the advertisement’s message — “Money Grows On Trees.” For with that poster, the state of Illinois has put its official stamp of approval and authority on a message that is both deceptive and destructive.
It is deceptive because it implies that lottery windfalls are common. But the odds of winning the lottery make Las Vegas, by comparison, look like a blue-chip investment. New Republic editor Michael Kinsley has said that the lottery represents “all the genius of American marketing applied to tempting previously sane citizens into wasting their money.”
Why should the government be immune from its own consumer protection laws? After all, if the same standard the government applies to cigarette companies were applied, truth in advertising would demand lottery advertisements include a caution: “WARNING: The state treasurer has determined that you have nearly no chance to win this lottery, that playing the lottery is hazardous to your financial health, and that it may promote compulsive behavior.”
The notion that money grows on trees is even more destructive. When government sponsors such advertising, it is actively promoting an extraordinary turnabout of American values. The traditional American dream based on the work ethic — if one works hard, he can succeed — has been replaced by a dream: something for nothing.
This new American dream of a free lunch has infected every level of society: the poor man who spends his grocery money on lottery tickets; the rich man who trades insider information to cheat other investors; the middle class consumer who has dug himself into a bottomless pit of credit card debt; and the government that spends trillions it does not have, heaping debt on future generations.
The state, by telling citizens that its lottery will yield fruitful treefulls of money, is both a symptom and cause of this attitude. It is a symptom because the lottery offers a quick, easy source of revenue for spineless legislators seeking something for nothing. It is a cause because government is a key arbiter of social values; its imprimatur lends legitimacy to legalized gambling, and thus undermines the work ethic, an essential element in the dignity of the individual.
Lotteries and this kind of pernicious advertising ought to raise political questions of the most basic sort. Can a government debase its citizens for its own financial interests? Should the state be involved in exploiting and encouraging a prevalent vice in order to feed its bloated budget? To such questions the Christian should respond with a resounding no!
We never really get something for nothing. The state of Illinois notwithstanding, money does not grow on trees. The price we pay for the lottery and this kind of advertising is very real. It is nothing less than our character.
The odds of winning in the lottery are atrocious. In the above mentioned Texas Scratch Off game, if you buy a lottery ticket, you are 68 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the advertised $1,000,000 prize with that ticket. Seeing such long odds on winning, a question comes to mind. Can a Christian be considered a good steward if he wastes his money in this pursuit? Paul states in I Timothy 5:8, “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” If a man spends just $5 a week on the lottery, that comes to $260 in a year’s time. Can you imagine a father telling his son they can’t afford a new pair of shoes, or a meal, or even a toy, when he has thrown away that amount of money? Or even worse, explaining to God that “X” amount was all he could put in the plate on the first day of the week, when he has blown so much in the vain pursuit of the almighty dollar? Truly, “…the love of money is a root of all {kinds of} evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (I Timothy 6:10).
This love of money is what the Bible calls “covetousness”. Notice the definition of the term covetousness, “Greedy desire to have more, avarice” (Thayer, page 516). Notice that avarice is a synonym stated by Thayer. Webster defines avarice as, “Insatiable or excessive desire for wealth or gain.” The only reason for the existence and success of the lottery is covetousness. The only reason that anyone would by a ticket for the lottery is covetousness. The only reason for the enjoyment found in scratching the black off the ticket is covetousness. Covetousness is SIN, and Paul said, “let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints” (Ephesians 5:3).
Gambling is unjust gain. It is unjust because it harms others. How can a Christian possibly feel good about the $2, $20, $20,000, $1,000,000 or $290,000,000 he just won, when it has caused so much harm to others? The homeless who spend what little they have on the dream of getting rich. The poor who cash their food stamps in, and buy tickets. Yes, even the guy who can afford it, but who doesn’t win. That money is his, not yours. You did not earn it! You did not give him something for it! He did not want you to have it! You took it from him! Until someone puts a fancy name on it, or until the State sponsors it, it is called STEALING. Surely you can see the sinfulness.
But, you might say, he didn’t have to play, it was his choice. Perhaps, but what about his wife, or his children? I have no respect for a man who will buy his beer, or his cigarettes, or his lottery tickets while his wife and his children go hungry. And I have no respect for one who will take that man’s money, and glory in his winnings, while that man’s family suffers. That is what is happening in the lottery every day, and that is what you will be a part of if you play. Listen to the anger of the Lord when Israel was guilty of the same, “‘In you they take bribes to shed blood; you take usury and increase; you have made profit from your neighbors by extortion, and have forgotten Me,’ says the Lord God. ‘Behold, therefore, I beat My fists at the dishonest profit which you have made, and at the bloodshed which has been in your midst” (Ezekiel 22:12-13). Surely no man can read about that anger of God and then in good conscience participate in the lottery, or gambling of any kind. Paul stated in Romans 13:10, “Love does no harm to a neighbor…” You can’t gamble and exhibit the love that is characteristic of all who would call themselves God’s children.
The lottery is already causing problems in the Lord’s church. Some who profess to be a children of God are beginning to press the point, asking, “What is wrong with playing the lottery? What possible harm could come from it?” There is no possible way to justify playing the lottery! There is no possible justification for any type of gambling, even if it is sponsored by the state. It doesn’t matter if it is buying one ticket, or buying 1,000. It doesn’t matter if you can afford it or not. It is sin! I am afraid that some of my brethren will try to rationalize away the guilt, as has been done so many other times regarding similar moral issues. It is wrong, it is sinful, and to participate is to do so at the soul’s peril. Christians have tried to rationalize away the evil evident in such things as drinking, smoking, wearing short shorts and other immodest apparel, dancing, mixed swimming, long hair, second marriages, and on and on and on. This is just another threat to the purity of God’s priesthood. Brethren, gambling is sin. Don’t let yourself be fooled, and more importantly, DON’T FOOL YOURSELF!
