“A greedy person tries to get rich quick, but it only leads to poverty.” (Proverbs 28:22, NLT)
The National Gambling Impact Study Commission was able to find out more about the statistical causes and impacts of gambling and finally released its report last month, a study that was two years in the making. Its conclusions suggest that state lotteries may not offer the beacon of hope that some of the folks in Raleigh want you to think. In fact, many states may have created more problems than they cured with the approval of legalized gambling.
James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, and a member of the Study Commission, put it this way: “Until a decade ago, there were only two states that permitted the operation of casinos, while if you want to gamble online there are also options like the olympic kingsway casinos which are great for this. You can also try the Casino Zeus Argentina, which offers a variety of games in a safe environment. Now, more than half the states have casinos and 48 states allow some form of legalized gambling. Americans gamble more money each year than they spend on groceries, and the number of adults and adolescents who suffer from problem or pathological gambling is rising.”
State lotteries are not the poor man’s form of entertainment. They’re the poor man’s tax, which prompted one researcher to say, “Gambling is not the ‘painless’ tax that gambling promoters like to claim. Rather, it is a highly regressive form of taxation that thrives by inducing false hopes among the financially destitute. Government’s multibillion-dollar annual take from gambling activities comes disproportionately from the pockets of America. There are now online gambling at https://casinoenligne-francais.net/tropezia-palace/, you can gamble real money and win real money. This has been most clearly evidenced in numerous statewide studies of lottery behavior over the last couple of decades.”
Legalized gambling in Georgia confirms its toll on the poor. The Birmingham (Al) News recently reported that Hancock County, one of Georgia’s poorest counties, where half of its citizens do not have a high school diploma, had annual lottery sales that translated into $554 for every county resident between the ages of 18 and 64. Conversely, Fayette County, one of Georgia’s wealthiest counties, spent only $139.
One of the major recommendations in the report urges states to eliminate “convenience gambling”, video slot machines, familiar to slots online , located in neighborhood convenience stores, supermarkets, restaurants, etc. They may seem innocuous, but the fact is they are as much of a death trap as cigarettes, especially for children. Just last week, I saw a child in my own community urging his mother to hurry up and finish so he could take his turn. Is it any wonder why one out of every thirty-six teenagers in Georgia is already a problem gambler?
Many states use lottery funds for education. In Georgia, for example, lottery funds guarantee college tuition and expenses for every Georgia resident who attends college as long as he or she maintains a “B” average. Ironically, it’s called the “Hope” Scholarship.
One of my Sunday School class members recently asked me if I would use the Hope Scholarship money to help finance my kid’s education. I replied yes. But now that I’ve thought about it and looked at what God’s Word has to say, I couldn’t allow one of my children to profit at the expense of someone else. It’s just not what I believe Christianity is all about!
When you get down to it, it really doesn’t matter what we think, what’s important is what God thinks. So next week, I’m going to share some Christian principles with you that come right out of His Word. Oh by the way, if you’re one of those Christians who say, “the Bible doesn’t specifically say gambling is wrong,” don’t bet on it because God’s Word is as clear about gambling as it is about murder. And he doesn’t mince any words when it comes to telling us how he feels about it.
I’ll see you next week, but until then, may God richly bless each of you in the week ahead.
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