A Sure Bet?
Bryant Northern had the world at his fingertips as a walk-on guard with a full scholarship at basketball powerhouse University of Louisville. He dreamed of dead-eye jump shots, March Madness, even a pro career. But the six-foot-tall Northern also had a hidden problem, one more common than Americans may want to admit— a problem that created by what is now a half-trillion dollar- a-year industry in this country. He was addicted to gambling. Caesars Indiana, the riverboat casino across the Ohio River from Louisville, was Northern’s hangout in high school. It became his scourge. A run of bad luck left him short of money and in trouble with the police. He dropped out of college at age twenty-three after being sentenced to five years’ probation for trying to cash stolen checks to pay his gambling habits.
Jim Chesser, fifty-five, a former Louisville bus driver, jokes that he was “born on a card table and raised on a race track” because of his parents’ love of bingo halls and horses. When Casino Aztar opened in Evansville, Indiana, in 1995, it was only natural he’d be a frequent patron. “That’s when recreational gambling crossed the invisible line to irresponsible, uncontrolled, compulsive gambling,” Chesser said. “When we’re gambling, we will lie, we will cheat, we will steal from everybody,” he continued. “It will take you places you never thought you would go.” He finally left those places, quitting gambling cold turkey to save his fourth marriage.
These stories are not uncommon in the USA, where less than thirty years ago legal gambling existed in just three states. It has now spread as an “engine of economic development” to every state in the union except Utah and Hawaii. America is sold on lottery gambling with its annual payoff of $20.9 billion to state governments. With its promises of new jobs and schools, more pay for teachers, smoother roads, and financial aid to other public services, it has become one of the biggest and most powerful political special interests in the land of the “free” (which is what gambling promises to deliver—something for nothing).
Gambling sounds simple: “to play at any game of chance for stakes, to stake or risk money or anything of value on the outcome of something involving chance or hazardous uncertainty” (Random House College Dictionary). It is taking a calculated risk for monetary or personal gain.
But this “simple” activity involves billions of dollars. Gambling in America says that the total spent in America on gambling is greater than the combined profits of US Steel, General Motors, and General Electric—in fact, more than the combined profits from all the one hundred largest US companies. Gambling generates more revenue than movies, spectator sports, theme parks, cruise ships, and recorded music combined. In Las Vegas, one of the fastest growing cities in America, players lose more than $6 billion a year at casinos. In the twenty one year period from 1974 to 1995, the amount of money Americans wagered increased 3200%, from $17 billion to $550 billion!
Gambling in America
Gambling was not a part of early America, but it has been accepted and embraced as America has aged and morally declined. Here are some significant dates in our gambling history.
- 1624—The Virginia Assembly decreed: “Mynisters shall not give themselves to excesse in drinking or yet spend their tyme idelie by day or night, playing dice, cards or any unlawful game.”
- 1656—Card fiends in the Plymouth Colony were fined forty shillings.
- 1748—Benjamin Franklin helped organize the Pennsylvania lottery “to raise 3000 pounds for military supplies to defend Philadelphia against the Frenchmen and Indians.”
- 1777—President Washington issued orders forbidding “all officers . . . and soldiers . . . playing at cards, or other games of chance . . . At this time of public distress [they] must find enough to do in service of God and their country without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality.”
- 1963—No state had a lottery.
- 1975—The federal government allowed state lotteries to advertise on radio and television.
- 1976—Casinos were legalized in Atlantic City. The number of state lotteries doubled.
- 1998—Over forty riverboat casinos operated in Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa. Nearly fifty riverboat and dockside casinos were in Louisiana and Mississippi. About 298 Indian casinos and bingo halls operated in thirty-one states. Some form of gambling was legalized in forty-eight states—lotteries, casinos, riverboat casinos, Indian casinos, video lottery machines, parimutuel betting (horse racing, dog racing, jai-alai).
Pathological Gambling
According to Gamblers Anonymous, at least 12 million Americans are compulsive gamblers, with an average personal debt exceeding $80,000 (Dallas Morning News). They are victims of their own incurable optimism, always believing they have a pretty good chance to win. But statistics say that a gambler is seven times more likely to be killed by lightning than to win a million dollars in a state lottery (Harper’s Magazine). They are also duped by the Gambler’s Fallacy—the mistaken notion that repetition changes the odds. If you flip a coin five times, always getting tails, there’s still a 50-50 chance that you’ll get tails on the next flip. But a gambler thinks instead: “Tails has come up five times in a row, so now it’s ‘time’ that heads comes up.”
Pathological (compulsive) gambling is recognized as a diagnosable mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association. The American Family Physician, a periodical published by the American Academy of Family Physicians, says pathological gambling affects 5-to-15 million Americans, is prominent in young people, and is often accompanied by alcohol abuse and depression. Following is a typical case history.
A 51-year-old businessman presented with complaints of fatigue and weight loss. Findings revealed evidence of alcohol dependence and depression, withdrawal from the family and social activities, and a lifelong history of compulsive gambling. In the previous three years alone, he had lost $13,000 playing the state lottery and slot machines. His spouse was concerned about possible economic and personal ruin if his gambling persisted. The patient admitted that he had claimed nonexistent winnings, gambled more than intended, felt guilty, had difficulty stopping, hid the evidence of his gambling, and secured loans to cover gambling debts.
Here are some diagnostic criteria to help recognize compulsive gambling.
- Preoccupation with gambling (reliving past gambling experiences, planning the next venture, thinking of ways to get money to gamble)
- A need to gamble with increasing amounts of money to achieve the desired excitement
- Repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop gambling
- Restlessness and irritability when attempting to cut down or stop gambling
- Gambling to escape from problems or moods
- Losing money one day and returning the next to get even (chasing losses)
- Lying to family members and others to conceal the extent of gambling
- Committing illegal acts such as forgery, fraud, and theft to finance gambling
- Jeopardizing or losing a significant relationship, job, or career opportunity because of gambling
- Relying on others to provide money
Sports Gambling
Sports gambling is illegal in almost every state, but there are efforts to legalize it—thus inviting organized crime into every arena and threatening the integrity of officials, coaches, players, and fans (as recent scandals illustrate).
Several years ago, a Gallup poll reported by Psychology Today revealed that one in four American men and one in eight women planned to gamble on the next Super Bowl.
Virtual (Online) Gambling
It is now possible to gamble twenty-four hours a day from the comfort of home using the Internet and a credit card. In addition to traditional games such as poker, roulette, slots, card games, and blackjack, one can bet on virtual reality TV shows, World Cups, Saturday matches, the weather, etc. It is touted as “fun” and “safe” online because of the difficulty of cheating in that medium. Satan sponsors these free gambling sites as bait and as stepping stones to gambling addictions.
Teens and Gambling
With their friends at parties, at school, or in solitude on the Internet, millions of American teens are taking up gambling. Much of the action is small-time—underage purchases of lottery tickets, playing cards or dice games for spare change. But experts say the long-term stakes are high because gamblers who start young are the most likely to develop addiction problems.
A parent’s passion for gambling may be passed on to an adolescent. Sarah, now a thirty-one-year-old executive in New York City, became hooked after accompanying her parents to Atlantic City casinos as a teenager. She now attends regular sessions of Gamblers Anonymous to shake an addiction that plunged her into a six-figure debt.
“I wouldn’t want to get up even to go to the bathroom” said Sarah.
A Biblical Perspective
- The Bible emphasizes the sovereignty of God (Matt. 10:29, 30), but gambling is based on chance.
- The Bible tells us to produce gain by working (Eph. 4:28), while gambling encourages a “something for nothing” attitude.
- The Bible warns about the sin of materialism (Matt. 6:24, 25), while gambling promotes it. One Greek word for covetousness is epithumeo, a compound of epi (upon) and thumos (passion). The mindset of gambling is to fix passion upon something which we can obtain by doing nothing. Greed and covetousness characterize gambling, whether it is a simple office bet on a sporting event or a visit to an extravagant all-night casino.
- Gambling destroys families. It leads to neglect, deceit, and strained relationships. First Timothy 5:8 warns that a person who refuses to provide for his family is worse than an infidel.
- Gambling can become a form of state-sponsored greed. Romans 13 teaches that the government is to be a minister of God. When government promotes gambling in any form, it subverts the moral fabric of society through greed and selfishness.
Ed. Note: Since this article’s publication, the gambling problems (and government involvement in gambling), is only on the rise.
Dr. Dave Barba, in full-time ministry for thirty-four years, planted Falls Baptist Church (Wisconsin), Trinity Baptist Church (Tennessee), and spent nine years in itinerant evangelism. He and his wife, Claudia, now assist church planters in the USA through the work of Press On! Ministries (www.ipresson.com).
(Originally published in FrontLine • September/October 2008. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.)