Image: Julio Cortez \/ AP<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 1990s were a busy time for Christians combatting gambling at local levels: fighting a casino here or lottery expansions there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tom Grey, a Methodist minister, traveled 250 days a year with the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, which now goes by the name Stop Predatory Gambling. He can remember major wins, like keeping a casino out of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with the help of filmmaker Ken Burns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe problem is [gambling companies] just have to win once, and they\u2019ve got it,\u201d Grey said. \u201cMayors and other people would stand up and say, \u2018We don\u2019t want your casino.\u2019 Now there aren\u2019t choices any longer. Churches feel it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grey, 81, is retired, but now he is watching the latest iteration of the industry take off: sports betting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Super Bowl on Sunday will be the first big windfall in many states for online sports betting. Companies like Draft Kings and FanDuel have been running ads throughout game broadcasts and all over sports news sites, urging fans to put money on their favorite teams or fantasy leagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The American Gambling Association has projected<\/a> a record 31.4 million Americans will put down $7.6 billion on this year\u2019s LA Rams\u2013Cincinnati Bengals matchup. That\u2019s up more than one-third from last Super Bowl, as more states have legalized online betting. Sports betting is now legal in 30 states and Washington, DC. In some states, such betting happens at a physical venue, while others have begun allowing it online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the practice in 2018, states lined up to legalize sports betting to get a slice of the tax revenue from the multibillon-dollar industry. State-level Christian organizations that tried to fight off the recent legalization of sports betting or put guardrails around it found that there was too much money on the other side of the issue and not much appetite for fighting in the pews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Few Christians see sports gambling as a problem. A 2016 survey from Lifeway Research<\/a> found that only 36 percent of Christians thought sports betting was morally wrong. Pastors carry more reservations, with a majority<\/a> telling Lifeway in 2019 that betting on sports is morally wrong and three-quarters believing it should not be legal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People responding on social media to critiques of gambling on Desiring God<\/a> or The Gospel Coalition<\/a> argued that the authors were being \u201clegalistic\u201d and that betting was no different than investing in the stock market or a 401(k).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Putting bucks on the big game through a few clicks on an app or sports site doesn\u2019t have the social stigma that casino gambling used to carry. The 2020 Gallup figures<\/a> on the issue showed that 71 percent of Americans said gambling was morally acceptable, the highest level in the 18 years it had done the survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But those who continue to be involved in antigambling activism say it\u2019s still harmful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think there\u2019s going to be a lot of devastation to individuals and families the following weeks,\u201d after the Super Bowl, said Anita Bedell, who worked to fight gambling in Illinois for decades as the head of Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction Problems. \u201cWhat do you do when you\u2019ve lost all that money? Paying it back, that could take a lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After working on the issue since 1990, Bedell\u2014known in the statehouse as the \u201cChurch Lady\u201d\u2014retired last week. She said it was \u201cdisheartening\u201d how quickly sports betting has swept the state and the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey disregard the problems that could happen,\u201d Bedell said. \u201cChurches are going to see all the harm and there will be an outcry \u2026 it\u2019s too accessible, there\u2019s no safeguards for young people, or to prevent people from losing everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Cleveland Browns defensive end was good at sacking quarterbacks, but his real passion was witnessing for Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AARON GRIFFITH AND PAUL PUTZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n For now, churches aren\u2019t very interested in the issue. Grey says churches are \u201cworn out\u201d and have to \u201cpick their issues to fight.\u201d He said the Methodists and Baptists were the firewalls against gambling in recent decades, and \u201cthe Baptists still hold Alabama,\u201d which largely bans any form of gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Southern Baptist Convention\u2019s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) puts out every year an antigambling church bulletin insert<\/a>, which lays out in bullet points why gambling is a \u201csin against God.\u201d The Assemblies of God adopted a position paper<\/a> in 2015 calling gambling \u201cunwise\u201d and \u201ca compromise of Christian ethics and witness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n These leaders and denominations point not only to the biblical wisdom on the nature of work, stewardship, and avoiding greed, but also to the idea that the few who gain from it are doing so at the expense of the many\u2013including the poor. The ERLC bulletin insert emphasizes that opposition to gambling is based on love for neighbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jason McGuire, who heads up the evangelical organization New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, fought the legalization of online betting in the state last year. His organization opposes online betting for similar reasons that the more liberal New York Daily News <\/em>editorial board has consistently opposed<\/a> it: They both see it as a tax on the poor. He also adds that the Bible prohibits making money from \u201cill-gotten gain\u201d and that people underestimate the addictive side of gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Christian community needs to understand, this is devastating to families that are impacted if people get caught up in this,\u201d he said. \u201cOn the anonymity of their cellphone in the living room, they\u2019re gambling away their mortgage money. The whole world is setting people up for failure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The New York Council on Problem Gambling, a state-funded group, estimates<\/a> that two million Americans \u201cmeet the diagnostic criteria for disordered gambling.\u201d (Gambling interests point out that is a tiny percentage of gamblers.) Grey said that the creation of state-funded groups for responsible gambling allowed politicians to feel at ease with the addictive side of betting\u2014that they were using some of the revenue for treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A study<\/a> in Spain showed a significant increase in \u201cyoung pathological gamblers\u201d after the country legalized online gambling, adding that the immediacy and accessibility of online gambling made it \u201cmore addictive than any other type of game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite their gloom about the immediate impact, the Christians who worked on the issue for decades are a bit more optimistic about the future. \u201cThis is the third historical wave of gambling in America,\u201d said Grey. \u201cIt has a boom-bust cycle to it. Why? Because it doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sports betting has surged recently without any curbs. That makes the problems with gambling more visible to Americans, he thinks, and will spur bipartisan interest in regulating the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He remembered in 1999 arranging a meeting between Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Focus on the Family president James Dobson to discuss gambling, and the two wrote a joint letter calling gambling \u201cthe bane of millions of Americans.\u201d Nader targeted Republicans who supported casino interests, and Dobson targeted Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s that\u2019s kind of movement that\u2019s needed today \u2026 the same right-left combination, this is something we agree on,\u201d said Grey. \u201cLet\u2019s call for more regulation and get advertising under control. Those are doable things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n By EMILY BELZ<\/a><\/strong> | Original Article Here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Image: Julio Cortez \/ AP The 1990s were a busy time for Christians combatting gambling at local levels: fighting a casino here or lottery expansions there. Tom Grey, a Methodist minister, traveled 250 days a year with the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, which now goes by the name Stop Predatory Gambling. He can remember …<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[80],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5185,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181\/revisions\/5185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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