Yes, it’s wrong to gamble

Of the moral revolutions plaguing America over the last 15-20 years, one doesn’t get as much attention as the others. That revolution involves the changing attitude among Americans about gambling.

The change is happening quickly. According to the American Gaming Association, 50 percent of Americans had a favorable view of the gambling industry in 2020, up from 31 percent in 2009. A Harris poll found that the percentage of Americans who had a positive opinion of sports betting in particular rose from 54 percent in 2022 to 63 percent in 2023—nine points in one year.

For Christians concerned about gambling making inroads in the church, a Lifeway Research survey released in February had some mildly good news. It found that 62 percent of evangelical pastors agreed with the statement, “It is morally wrong to bet on sports.” But that means a full 38 percent did not agree with the statement or didn’t know. (Fifty percent of mainline pastors said sports betting was wrong.)

A growing number of Americans seem to think gambling is only immoral for people who lose too much money or become addicted to betting. Responsible gambling, writes Jennifer Shatley of UNLV’s International Gaming Institute, is about “taking breaks, not using gambling as a source of income, only gambling with money that you can afford to lose, and setting limits for yourself.” In other words, a responsible gambler will take steps to avoid the risk of losing too much money.

However, it might surprise many people to learn that, historically, opponents of gambling were concerned about the behavior of the winner of bets, too. The winner was also being irresponsible.

The moral objections to gambling were never about entertainment or gaining money, per se. It’s OK to have fun and gain money—but scriptural principles instruct us to do so in ways that do not harm other people. “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others,” Philippians 2:4 tells us. In a similar vein, the Westminster Shorter Catechism states that the Eighth Commandment requires “the lawful procuring and furthering the wealth and outward estate of ourselves and others.”

It’s at this point that even so-called responsible gambling fails morally, because gambling is a zero-sum activity. For one person to win, someone else has to lose. Christians of all stripes once understood this. The skilled gambler, argued the old Princeton theologian Charles Hodge, takes advantage “of the unwary or unskillful to deprive them of their property without compensation.” William Temple, archbishop of Canterbury in the early 1940s, wrote that gambling was not only poor stewardship for the loser of a bet but poor behavior for the winner: “The attempt (inseparable from gambling) to make profit out of the inevitable loss and possible suffering of others is the antithesis of that love of one’s neighbor on which our Lord insisted.”

To be sure, other ways of gaining money—work, investment—can be harmful to others, too, but they aren’t inherently so. Someone who works at or invests in, say, Pornhub makes money by harming others, but most jobs and investments are beneficial to our neighbors. Through our work, we provide other people with valuable goods and services, and through investment we provide companies with the capital to grow, create jobs, and make existing jobs more productive. Communities need work and investment, and the Bible endorses both (Ephesians 4:28; 2 Thessalonians 3:10; Proverbs 13:11; Proverbs 31:16, among other verses). Communities don’t need gambling.

Many will object that gambling is like any other market transaction because a losing gambler made the free choice to wager his money. He may, in this view, enjoy the thrill of the bet and may see a benefit that is worth the cost even if he loses. Nineteenth-century theologian R. L. Dabney anticipated that argument. “The answer,” he wrote, “is that his consent is one which he has no right to give, because it is prompted by an immoral motive, namely: the hope of plundering his rival.” The fact that your neighbor wanted to take from you—and tried to do so—doesn’t make it OK to take from him.

As sins go, gambling, of course, isn’t as destructive as murder, adultery, or performing transgender surgeries. But it is still destructive, as reports of increased gambling addiction are beginning to highlight. And if we are not faithful in matters of money, we won’t be faithful in the higher matters (Luke 16:10-12).

So don’t act like a heel toward your neighbor. Don’t gamble—and don’t support gambling.