Gambling, Politics and Theology

By Joey Phillips 

I have gotten into a couple semi-debates recently regarding gambling. I wouldn’t call them real arguments because I haven’t firmed up my understanding of the issues, and hence don’t have a fully formed opinion/conviction regarding gambling. There are several different aspects of this discussion, and I can’t tackle them all on one post (plus, there are a couple of red herrings that folks try and throw out there that I want to avoid). So let me say a couple things up front.

1. Poker is gambling. Many people try and argue that it is not really gambling because it is a game of skill, not chance primarily. I’m going to ignore that silly argument, since it is akin to saying that Golf is not a sport because you don’t have teammates. Poker fits every definition of gambling that has ever been put in a dictionary. I know because I checked every single dictionary in the world.
2.  Just because something (like, say…investing) involves risk, it doesn’t make that thing gambling. Putting something valuable at stake (risk) is an aspect of gambling, but it’s not the only thing that makes something gambling.

I am just going to define gambling, real quick so that it diffuses some of the arguments Alex will try to bring up later…and I am going to post links to a series of blog posts by Phil Johnson on the topic, since he dealt with most of these issues and I am borrowing his specific definition of gambling.

To gamble is to wager on a contest or play in a game of chance for stakes. When you gamble, you are risking something valuable on the outcome of something that involves chance, uncertainty, or hazard, for the possibility of winning something somebody else has put up as a stake. So there are four elements of gambling. 1) Something valuable is put at risk. 2) Something belonging to someone else is put up as a prize. 3) An element of chance is involved in the outcome. 4) No new wealth is created in the process.

Ok so now that we have gotten that out of the way, I have two questions I want to ask and then talk about:

Is gambling immoral?

Should it be illegal?

I think the question of the morality, or immorality, of gambling is separate from the question of whether it should be legal. Plenty of things are immoral that are not illegal and vice versa. Let’s start with some arguments for why gambling should be considered immoral.

1. Gambling is addictive – This is a common aspect of gambling that is brought up to argue both that it is immoral and that it should be illegal. Similar to arguments about smoking, the idea is that any activity that is addicting, and potentially dangerous (physically in the case of smoking, and monetarily/emotionally in the case of gambling) has to be immoral.
2. Gambling violates a number of biblical principles – see the links at the end of this article for Phil Johnson’s extensive treatment of this issue. I will be talking about this in a minute, and it will help if you have read at least a couple of those articles to become familiar with his arguments.
3.  Where there is gambling, other vices abound – It is argued that crime rate rises wherever gambling is legalized, therefore it must be immoral.

So those are the main arguments. I would argue that gambling can be very immoral. I don’t think many people would argue with that. Someone could gamble selfishly, foolishly, lazily, or cruelly. Someone could play football all of those ways too. The question is in regards to its inherent nature. Is gambling inherently immoral, like adultery or murder or covetousness?

I don’t think the addiction argument works for determining the inherent sinfulness, or immorality of gambling simply because it is not universally addictive. It is estimated that 2 to 5 percent of people who gamble socially can be considered “addicted.” (See medicinenet.com for an article on this). While this is a lot of people…millions in the US…it clearly isn’t addictive for everyone. In other words, being addictive is not an inherent aspect of gambling. I also think the guilt by association argument is weak. It is clearly built on a logical fallacy, and there are any number of reasons why crime rate is higher in the same areas you find gambling. (I haven’t actually seen a study that proves this, but I believe it’s true, simply because gambling is legal in places like, oh, SIN CITY.)

The strongest argument that gambling is inherently immoral comes from argument that it violates biblical principles. Is gambling, by definition, covetous? Is gambling, by definition, a lack of charity? Etc. I have read Phil Johnson’s arguments and find them very compelling. Enough so, that I would say that gambling is sin the vast majority of the time. I still am not convinced that it is inherently sinful though, for a couple of reasons.

First, each principle that is typically violated in gambling doesn’t have to be. Trying to win your neighbors money in a game of chance is usually going to be covetous. But $2 over the course of a night? Can you play a game of poker and your motives be purely to have fun, fellowship, and entertainment? I think so. I think the amount of money you are playing for probably reveals what is going on in your heart. If the game can only by fun if the payoff is large then it’s likely you are coveting your neighbor’s possessions, or the thrill of the risk involved is important enough to you that taking a portion of your neighbor’s income to feed that rush is no big deal. Gambling is typically trying to win money without working for it. For most people, this is why it is fun…the possibility of quick, unearned cash. But again, it doesn’t have to be. Again, if poker is only fun when the stakes are high then laziness and trying to get money without working for it is probably the motive. If money is simply what is being used so people will play for real, and the payoff is not large…then it is possible for motives to be pure. The larger the amount of money involved, the more difficult to argue that biblical principles are not being violated.

So in sum, I would argue that gambling is not inherently immoral, it is just a tool that easily lends itself to sin, so a lot of wisdom is needed in its use.  This post is long enough…I’ll wait on talking about the argument regarding legality till next time.

Links to Phil Johnson’s posts:

 

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-gambling-ok-dont-bet-on-it.html

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2009/11/gambling-some-definitions-and.html

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2009/11/answering-couple-of-objections.html

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2009/11/oh-and-one-more-thing.html

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2009/11/gambling-vs-faithful-stewardship.html

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2009/11/does-mutual-consent-eliminate-evil-in.html

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2009/11/good-question.html

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2009/11/sin-of-putting-god-to-test.html

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2009/11/gambling-moral-antithesis-of-charity.html