What does the Bible about gambling? Should Christians engage in sports betting? - Podcast Episode 79

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Welcome to the

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GotQuestions podcast. Today we're going to be continuing our series of going through the top 20 questions of all time on GotQuestions .org,

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and today's question is an interesting one. We're going to be talking about, is gambling a sin?

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Today I have Jeff, the administrator of BibleRef .com, and Kevin, the managing editor of GotQuestions Ministries.

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This question to me is really interesting in that it's become a hot topic again recently.

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It's always been a popular question, especially so recently with the explosion of sports gambling, sports betting with several states.

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I really don't know what the status of sports gambling is in other countries. I imagine it's there, but here in the

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United States, several states have legalized it completely, and so you're seeing lots of commercials for, download this app or go with this particular sports book and you can bet.

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And I've done a little research into it, and the Super Bowl is actually the biggest gambling event of the year.

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And with some of these apps, these programs, you could gamble on literally every play.

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Do you think the next play the Los Angeles Rams run, is it going to be a running player or a passing player?

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This particular drive of the Bengals, are they going to score a touchdown, a field goal, punt, or a turnover?

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And you can bet on absolutely everything. Well, anyone who's ever tried to minister to someone who's struggling with gambling knows what a recipe for a disaster this is, taking something that's fun and enjoyable.

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And honestly, I think I would enjoy doing something like that, just trying to guess what's the next play, a little bit of fun of risking money.

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But to me, I know myself well enough to know that's not something I should be involved in because it's something

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I could very easily get at least somewhat addicted to. And I don't know I'd be able to have the appropriate amount of control over how much

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I'm willing to risk. So it's a fascinating concept. It's not something I'm actually that interested in doing just because I know the risks.

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So that's what we're going to be talking about today. What is gambling? What does the Bible say about it?

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Should a Christian be involved in gambling at all? And if so, to what extent? So Jeff, why don't you start us off?

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What are some of the thoughts the Lord has given you about gambling recently? One of the things

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I think we have to focus on is understanding what we mean when we talk about gambling in the first place.

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And there's concepts that come in. There's no single definition that anybody's going to perfectly agree on.

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But there's general principles when we're talking about gambling, true gambling. We're talking about something that involves a risk without some likelihood of success.

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There's a reason that they say the house always wins. Gambling, by definition, is set up to make somebody else some kind of profit or money.

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It's meant that you're going to have low odds of success. The lottery is the ultimate example of that, where your chances of getting anything back from it are much lower than the chances that you're just handing money over.

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We're talking about something that's focused on money, something that doesn't add any creative or aesthetic or artistic or knowledge to something or anything.

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It's just something that's sort of chance -based or mostly chance -based.

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And even games that involve a level of skill, blackjack in a casino, there's things you can do that are good or bad decisions, but there's still an element of chance that's really what's driving what you're doing.

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So I think when we talk about something that's true gambling, those are the ideas that come into it.

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So things like sports betting, pretty much everything that happens in a casino. The benefits usually are all about finances.

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They're all about money. So the idea of it looking as a get -rich -quick sort of a scheme is part of the problem.

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And for me, I think that another thing that's really important to focus on is the idea that in gambling, there's no creation, there's no property, there's no advancement.

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It's just risk and you lose or you gain and nothing is really developed in the meantime.

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And that's important to remember because sometimes people get concerned over the idea that it's just the uncertainty or the risk that makes something gambling.

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And that's not true. And we sometimes use phrases in English that confuse that, where we say like,

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I'm taking a gamble on this, that or the other. And a lot of times that's not really gambling. Things like investing in the stock market, for example, that's not gambling.

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But when you buy stocks, what you're doing is you're purchasing a stake in a company. The company is going to try to succeed.

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They're going to try to provide a profit. It's true that not all stock purchases succeed.

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Sometimes they don't do well, sometimes they fail, but they're not deliberately intended to most likely lose you money.

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You're also investing in that in something that's going to create some sort of either artistry or property or good or service or artistic endeavor.

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You're in the process of creating something. So things like investments, that's not gambling.

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Insurance is also not a form of gambling. When you have an insurance policy that says,

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I'm going to pay a certain amount every month, just in case something really, really bad happens. That's almost the opposite of the real spirit of gambling, because in gambling, you're investing quite a bit to get ultimately little to no return, especially on the average.

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Whereas when you have something like insurance, typically what you're doing is you're investing a relatively small amount in order to shield yourself from an even bigger risk.

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And that doesn't mean that every Christian has to be in favor of insurance and things like that, but there are differences between those things.

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So it's not just a question of us asking ourselves, am I taking a risk? Oh, well, if it's a risk or there's something uncertain, that's gambling.

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And I can't do that. So the definitions of exactly what it is are important. After we have an idea of whether or we're talking about gambling, the type of gambling that we're discussing here, then we have other ideas, then we have other thoughts that we have to look at.

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Kevin, I think you were planning on bringing some information about that, the way that we should be questioning or asking how we're approaching this once we've decided whether or not this is gambling in the first place.

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Yes. And that's helpful, Jeff, to be able to distinguish between gambling and investments, because there is that difference.

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And if we're being tempted to do actual gambling, then there are some questions we probably need to be asking ourselves.

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I have five of them here that I think are wise questions for us to ask if we are tempted to gamble.

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And the first one is just simply, where's our faith? Do we live by faith in the provision of God, or do we live by faith in luck or faith in chance?

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Really, where is our provision coming from? Where is our hope? Is our hope in God?

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Is our hope in chance? Just hoping that something lucky is going to happen and I can get these resources.

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So that's a very important question, I think. What is our faith in exactly?

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Also, another question that we should be asking ourselves concerning this issue of gambling is, do we seek to love our neighbor, or are we seeking to profit from his loss?

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Because that's really what gambling comes down to. In order for me to win, somebody else has to lose.

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And as Jeff, you were pointing out with an investment in a company, everybody is seeking to win.

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And if that company succeeds, then the investments pay off and everyone is benefited.

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But not so with gambling. In order for me to succeed, somebody else has to lose.

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And I don't think that shows love for our neighbors to be rooting for him to fail so that I can collect his money and make it my own.

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So that is one of the basic principles that keeps me away from gambling, is love of neighbor.

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Also, another question, are we trying to stay away from all forms of greed and covetousness?

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Because that's really, I think, what gambling comes down to at its core.

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It's a form of coveting. I want something that I do not have. I was speaking a few years ago to a man who was addicted to gambling, and he was on the verge of losing his family over it, actually, because he'd spent all their savings, spent all their vacation money that they had set aside, and it was really causing problems at home.

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And I mentioned in the course of our conversation that we needed to work on overcoming greed and coveting.

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And his statement to me was, I never really thought about it, but that's what it is. I'm coveting.

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I'm just being greedy. And I think that's a question we need to ask. Am I trying to avoid all forms of coveting and all forms of greed?

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Also, are we content with what we have? The biblical principle is that godliness with contentment is great gain.

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And God calls us to be content with such things as we have. Hebrews 13 and verse 5, keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have.

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And again, this ties in with who are we trusting? Are we trusting God to provide for our needs?

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Are we content with what he has allowed us to have? Or are we desperately grasping for more and following this very risky plan of seeking to get more?

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How much better just to be content with what God allows us to have? And then question number five, do we realize that everything we possess has been given to us by God and that we are simply stewards of the resources that he has given us?

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Our church right now is in a building project. We've been raising money for several years now for a new building to add to our existing building.

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And sometimes we joke about how we should just go out and buy a hundred lottery tickets and win the lottery.

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And then we could just pay off this whole building project right away. And of course, we say that tongue in cheek, say that as a joke, because we would never consider doing that as a church, because it would not be a wise use of the resources

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God has provided to our ministry. Now we have made some investments. We purchased some certificates of deposit that have a higher rate of interest than just a regular savings account.

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And so we've tried to wisely steward the money that God's people have given toward this project, but there's no way that we would go out and play the lottery.

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And I think the same holds true in our personal lives. I wouldn't go out and put that money at risk like that, knowing that I'm responsible to use every resource

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I have for the glory of God. And I don't want to put it in a foolish risk like that.

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And for all of these questions that we can ask ourselves,

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I think we come down to an answer that gambling is something that believers just need to be staying away from and avoiding.

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Excellent thoughts, Kevin and Jeff. Some scriptures that came to my mind when I was preparing for this, scriptures on stay away for the love of money.

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So 1 Corinthians 6 .10, for example, for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

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It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.

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Anyone who knows someone who's been addicted to gambling can really relate to piercing themselves with many pains.

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Or Hebrews 13 .5 says, keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have. For he, as in God, has said,

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I will never leave you and forsake you. Then one other one, just with attempts to get rich quick, but I mean, some gamble for fun, but the vast majority of people who are gambling are doing so because they're hoping for a financial windfall.

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Well, Proverbs 13 .11 says, wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers it little by little will increase it.

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Obviously in Proverbs, there's a lot more about staying away from the love of money, staying away from risking your money, staying away from attempts to get rich quick and elsewhere in scripture as well.

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But I think these are a good summary of what scripture says in that there's nothing wrong with seeking to improve the status of our income, to looking to ways to increase our income, to looking for ways to improve our financial situation, but gambling as the way

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Jeff defined it, taking unnecessary risk for something that's highly unlikely to pay off.

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That's not the method the Bible says to go about trying to improve your financial situation.

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And so rarely does it work. And when I look at the lottery, for example, here's so many people lose so much money on the lottery, people in the vast majority of people who are investing in investing, who are gambling with the lottery are the people who can least afford to do it.

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As far as I can remember, I don't think I've purchased a lotto ticket in the past decade.

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The last time I did, it's kind of a funny story. I'll keep it brief, but my dog ate something.

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I don't know what it was, but it made him horribly sick and he made a huge mess in various parts of the house.

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So I had to run to the grocery store to pick up a wet vac to clean up the mess he had left behind.

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And I'm standing there waiting in the line for the wet vac. And I see Powerball up there, 500 million or whatever crazy obscene amount of money it was.

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And I was like, you know, maybe God allowed this thing with my dog to happen to get me to the grocery store so I would buy this lotto ticket so then

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I would win. And oh, I'd give all the money away. And all these plans are going through my mind at two in the morning and bought one ticket, didn't match a single number.

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And I think that was the last time I did it because as wonderful as that would be, you also hear stories of how winning money that way ruins people, how it destroys their lives, how they somehow blow through crazy amounts of money and are in a far worse financial situation afterwards than they were before.

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So none of the things that we dream about with lottery winnings ever come to true.

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And I'd say never, but 99 % of the time you either are not going to win or if you do win, it is not going to result in the improvement to your life that you were hoping for.

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And that's something that God has really instilled in me just through learning through the mistakes of others.

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So thankfully gambling is not a temptation for me, but I know it is for many others and I get it,

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I understand it. But based on what scripture says, gambling is not something that Christians should be,

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I wouldn't say absolutely no, never, absolutely not sort of thing.

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But if so, it's got to be extremely rare. You've got to be extremely careful and you've got to make sure you're doing it with the right heart, the right attitude and with the right restrictions.

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There's a lot of danger in the addiction side of it. I think that's something that's worth pointing out and making clear is that there are unique aspects to gambling that do draw people in, in a sense.

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So it is something that people need to be careful about. It's not like some other things that we would point out.

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We would say, well, scripture doesn't necessarily say that it's a sin. Maybe it's a waste of time.

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Maybe it's a waste of money. But gambling does have that element to it that gets a lot of people drawn in and a lot of people addicted that folks need to be careful of.

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They need to be aware of. I think we also have to remember that there is a difference between something that is not necessarily good if it's done very often versus something that in and of itself maybe isn't great, but when it's occasional, then it's not as much of an issue.

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Having a gigantic slice of cake with ice cream is not especially great for a person's health, but doing that every once in a while in and of itself isn't going to completely destroy your health.

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It's not going to totally destroy your body. And the same thing would be something like if you're buying a lottery ticket every year or something, that's obviously not something that's going to ruin you financially.

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So there is a difference between saying this is something that is so dangerous, so awful. It's certainly not addictive to the same extent as things like heroin are, but there are things that we have to be careful of.

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That doesn't mean that the entire concept by itself is so dangerous that just because it's not great.

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There are things that we do that aren't great that are okay when they're done every once in a while because of the benefits they have.

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In my view, I don't think that there's much going on in gambling that provides even those side benefits like eating cake.

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So for me, that's something that just isn't very appealing. Yeah. Jesus warned us about the deceitfulness of riches because riches in Scripture are often presented as something that can get in between us and God.

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It can damage our spiritual relationship with our Lord. When Jesus was telling his parable of the four soils, he said there was one type of ground where the seed came and it fell on the ground.

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It started to grow, but then Mark 4 and verse 19, the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches.

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That phrase is one we can't overlook, the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word and it becomes unprofitable.

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So riches can be deceiving. They promise to solve so many problems.

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If I just had enough money, then all my problems would be solved. All my worries would go away.

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Well, we all know that that's a lie. That's part of the deceitfulness of riches. It's something that plays into the temptation to gamble for so many people.

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You need to watch out for that. Absolutely. Anyone who's considering gambling,

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I would encourage you to do a study in the book of Proverbs on all the different verses that talk about money.

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That'll give you a completely different perspective. Again, Proverbs is not a list of commands. It's more a list of principles of wisdom that if you follow these, generally speaking, your life will be better.

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But I'd be really hard to make a case that gambling is something we should have been involved in when we studied the financial principles in Proverbs.

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And Jeff, I really like what you said about different things that we maybe waste time or money on.

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I remember someone submitted a question to us not that long ago where they were trying to argue in favor of gambling.

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And their main line of reasoning was, well, we waste money on all sorts of things. I mean, going to a movie is a waste of money.

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Eating fast food is a waste of money when you can eat something cheaper and healthier at home. All these different things we waste time and money on.

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And I'm like, are you seriously comparing saying we should waste time on anything at all?

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So if you think these other things are a complete waste of time, well, we shouldn't be doing any of them. It's like saying, well, just because you waste your time on these things means

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I can waste my money on gambling. I really didn't see his logic there, because we shouldn't be wasting money or time on anything.

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Obviously, there's a room in the Christian life for entertainment. There's room for having fun. There's room for using our money for things that are fun.

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But no, comparing gambling to other things that are a waste of time or money, to me, that's a non -starter, because my goal is to never waste time or money on anything.

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So if you think that's the case with gambling or going to movies or whatever, you shouldn't be involved in any of it.

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You should not do anything that you think is completely devoid of value. Yeah.

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If you really think that there's nothing of value in there at all. I mean, if you go see a film or a movie, there's some aesthetic value, there's entertainment value in that.

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That could be bonding experience with the family, same with food, same with sports. When people run on a track, they're running around in circles.

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From a certain perspective, they're not accomplishing anything, but there's physical benefits. There's other things like that are involved.

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Gambling, it's just really hard to come up with any ancillary benefits like that. I like that you brought up the book of Proverbs.

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There's a lot of statements in Proverbs that are good. I think there's an especially good one at the start of chapter six in Proverbs.

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It shows not only the dangers that are involved in taking what we would think of as stupid risks, but it also kind of emphasizes this difference between something that's an investment versus something that's just a gamble.

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Solomon's talking about putting up security for a stranger. The quick explanation of what that means is if you are tying your financial status by saying, oh, if this person that I don't know that I've never met can't pay this debt,

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I'll pay it for that person. I'll mortgage my house or something else in my life.

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He says, that's a really bad idea. Go and beg to get out of that because that is not wise.

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That's an example of why we should say there's a difference between risks that are reasonable, that it's not a guarantee, but it looks like something that could make sense versus doing something with your money or with your goods that just there's no reason for you to think it's going to have success and it's going to put you at tremendous risk.

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I also think it's good to bring up the idea that the gambling thing needs to be looked into carefully before somebody gets into it.

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I have family who live in Las Vegas, which here in the States is a Mecca for gambling.

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It's sort of the gambling capital, if not the world, certainly of North America. And I have been there to visit at times.

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And I've heard stories from them of people who will sit for hours and hours and hours in casinos and just pour their money into things like slot machines and table games and things like that.

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It's not a happy sort of existence. And it's not the sort of thing that people got into from the get -go thinking, yes,

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I would like to spend 35 or 40 hours a week dumping every penny I have into this machine.

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There's a reason they call slot machines, one -armed bandits, because it's all part of that system.

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So it's good for us to look at those things and understand the difference between saying, am I taking a step of faith and hoping that what

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I'm doing is really going to bring me success? Or am I just falling for the deceitfulness of riches because somebody's conning me into saying, if I give this person money, then maybe

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I'll get rich really quick. There's a big difference between those. Yeah. So the last time that Melissa and I, Melissa, my wife, we're in a casino other than like walking through it to get to the amazing buffet was on our honeymoon.

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And there was a casino right next to our hotel. And so we decided the two of us together, $20, that's all we're going to risk, which at that point in our lives actually was a decent amount of money.

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But at one point we were up to almost like $40. We'd almost doubled our money. And I was kind of like, this whole gambling thing, this is easy.

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Why do some people struggle with this? Well, by the end of the evening, we were down to, I think, around $3. So I think

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God humbled me very quickly. And that lesson has just stayed with me. He's like, no, I'm not so smart that I can figure this out.

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Or I'm not so disciplined that I can know where to stop. No, this is not something that I want to spend time with.

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And if you watch the commercials on TV, the recent ones about all the sports books that are out there, and there's many of them, they're more popping up day after day.

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There's now like disclaimers they have to put on there. It's like always bet responsibly, always only bet what you've decided ahead of time to bet.

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And even commercials that are specifically in a sense countering all the ones encouraging you to gamble saying, be very careful when you gamble.

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And the reason I have to do this is because of how powerful a temptation it is and how many people's lives and families have been destroyed by an addiction to gambling or taking exorbitant risks in gambling in hopes of getting rich quick.

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Because this is not something that a Christian should be a part of. Again, please don't hear any like legalistic thing. No, there's absolutely no way

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Christians should ever gamble in any sense. That's not what we're saying. We're saying the consistent message of scripture is we are to be wise with our money.

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We are to be careful with our money. We are to invest it and to make it grow in a careful sense.

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And gambling is none of those things. So please hear that to be our primary advice to you today is if gambling is something you're considering, study what the scripture have to say.

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And we think God will lead you in a different direction. So Jeff and Kevin, thank you for joining me again today.

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It's been a continuation of our series through the top 20 questions of all time on GotQuestions on gambling.

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Is gambling a sin? Should Christians be involved in gambling? I hope the conversation has been encouraging to you because that's our goal with the podcast.