• Americans gamble more money annually than they spend on groceries.

• Nearly one in five homeless people say gambling contributed to their poverty.

• Nevada ranks first in the U.S. in suicide, in divorce, in high school dropouts.

• The unemployment rate in Atlantic City, NJ, is almost three times the national average.

• More than 200 restaurants in Atlantic City have gone broke since gambling Was legalized.

Perhaps the shock of these facts is diminished by the constant bombard­ment, from media of all kinds, of invi­tations to participate in lotter­ies and casino gambling. "Gaming" (today's euphemism for gambling) has become such a prominent feature of our cul­tural landscape as to be taken for granted. Only now, after a decade of strong industry growth and development, are we beginning to notice the high costs of gambling.

Types of Gamblers⤒🔗

Three types of gamblers keep the industry going and grow­ing.

First there's the hobbyist or dreamer, the kind who limits gambling activity in terms of time and money — say, a Week­end in Las Vegas with $500.00 to spend. Gambling is enter­tainment, a night out, a fun time.

The second type is the adven­turer. Gambling becomes the activity around which, for example, a vacation is sched­uled. A higher degree of knowledge and intensity is devoted to betting. Gambling moves from entertainment to opportunity.

Then there's the third and most serious kind: the addict, the compulsive gambler. This player will bet until nothing is left. Anything of value — sav­ings, family assets, personal belongings — may be pawned, sold, or used as collateral. Compulsive gamblers may bor­row from family, co-workers, credit unions, and friends. Many panic when funds dry up, and turn to illegal activity. According to a 1992 report by a Minnesota state planning agency, about sixty percent of pathological gamblers engage in crime to support their habit.

Available research done by non-gambling industry analysts shows that a person's economic status tends to determine what kind of gambler he becomes. A gambler's economic status tends to determine for him the psychological and financial meaning of gambling. The higher a gambler's income, the more he tends to see gambling as a form of entertainment and socializing. Gamblers whose income in low tend to see gam­bling as a form of investment (see Rachel A. Volberg and Randell  M.Stuefen, "Gambling and Problem Gambling in South Dakota," Gaming in South Dakota, Business Research Bureau, University of South Dakota, Vermillion [Nov. 12, 1991], p. 7; also Los Angeles Times poll, 1986, cited in Charles T. Clotfelter and Philip J. Cook, "On the Economies of State Lotteries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 4, no. 4 [Fall 1990], p. 109). Moreover, people with lower incomes who gamble spend a larger percentage of their incomes on gambling than those of higher income.

Government and Gaming←⤒🔗

• Well-funded gambling interests have figured promi­nently in the outcomes of many electoral races, includ­ing gubernatorial elections in South Carolina and Alabama.

• Indian tribes in California spent more than $70 mil­lion to buy voters' approval to put largely unregulated and untaxed casinos all over the state.

• Politicians of both stripes — both Democrats and Republicans — have been courted and supported by the gambling interests; names include Clinton, Dole, Gingrich, Lott, Gore, Daschle, Ensign, Gibbons, and Gephardt.

• In South Carolina 18 former or current lawmakers were netted in the FBI sting Operation Lost Trust, which centered on charges that lawmakers traded their votes on a gambling bill for cash payoffs.

• A mere decade ago, only New Jersey and Nevada per­mitted casinos; now 48 states have legalized some form of gambling.

Perhaps one of the most omi­nous and troublesome features of North America's contempo­rary gambling fever is the rela­tionship between government and gaming. The state has become a bookie. State-spon­sored gambling activities effec­tively create a well-protected competitor to private industry for the consumer dollar. To succeed, state-sponsored gam­bling has entered the manipu­lation market of advertising with the dual purpose of increasing both the amount of money gambled and the num­ber of gamblers.

Two realities result. First, when the state sponsors gam­bling and lives from its pro­ceeds, the government's role is perverted in society. If the state's calling is to ensure jus­tice for all, especially the weak and the poor, then its own means of raising revenue serves to expand the number of poor and to exploit human weakness.

A second result is this: as a well-protected competitor, the state enjoys significant advan­tages over small business and enterprise. For example, if a company was given the exclu­sive right to produce and sell milk in a state, the firm could reap huge profits, create large numbers of jobs, and would be happy to pay lots of money to the state for this privilege. When we look at the popular success of gambling, gambling by itself (as one competitor among others for the consumer dollar) is not the reason for the large profits initially produced by state-sponsored gambling, but rather it is the state's abili­ty to create a limited franchise enterprise and to criminalize competitors.

You might be asking yourself: Why has there been so little public outcry against the growth of state-sponsored gambling? Three reasons come to mind.

First, so many of the costs of gambling are hidden costs. The moral, social, and economic damage resulting from this vice appear much later, or appear in ways not visibly connected to gambling. The divorce rate rises — but who thinks to inquire about the gambling habits of divorcees?

Second, any public outcry is muffled by the more penetrat­ing cries of decaying communi­ties for rescue. These commu­nities are searching for a dream, something to give them hope amid devastation. Promises of economic renewal are made, not to those living in sheltered suburban communi­ties, but to those living in dilap­idated, crime-ridden housing where unemployment rates bump 30 percent.

A third reason why little pub­lic outcry has arisen is that far too many churches and non-­profit organizations like schools are resorting more and more to forms of gambling for raising "charitable revenue." Too many Protestants criticize the Catholic "bingo night," but see no problem with signing a raffle ticket for the new pickup offered at the Christian school fundraiser. The Christian community seems to have lost its voice.

Gambling and the Economy←⤒🔗

Wall Street Journal, 9/11/95: Louisianans complain that gambling sucks profits from mom-and-pop commercial enterprises that make neighborhoods thrive. Supporters of the land-based casino in New Orleans originally projected job increases (direct and indirect) of 50,000. In fact, fewer than 10,000 jobs have been created. Throughout Louisiana the boats dependent on local traf­fic face increasing competition, slower than expected growth, and even closings. All forms of gam­bling worry local entrepreneurs and retailers, who depend on local citizens to spend disposal income at their businesses. These businesses include movie the­aters, car dealerships, clothing shops, sports arenas, restaurants.

During the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, the growth of state-sponsored gambling has been accompa­nied by a significant change in economic realities. Long-term investment in productive enter­prises declined, quick-profit ventures arose and swept the country. Speculating in real estate, in the stock market, and in collectibles was accompa­nied by speculating in betting. Many of these economic devel­opments stressed techniques for making money through luck rather than work. More and more North Americans no longer see work as the pathway to a secure financial future. Fewer than ever believe that "hard work pays off."

In real terms, wages have been declining, two-working parent families became com­mon, savings account interest is non-existent. All of these fac­tors have contributed to a broad shift in the economy toward popular speculation, which directs more and more human and financial resources into unproductive activities. Inflation of value without increase of productivity occurs throughout the economy, an economy in which new finan­cial techniques are created for accumulating debt, and speculators are rewarded.

Gambling and Community Development←⤒🔗

Advocates of legalized gam­bling have for decades been promising many wonderful benefits — in the form of more tax dollars — for supporting the Three Big E's: Education, Environment, and Economic development.

With regard to education, studies have shown that gam­bling revenue tends to replace rather than supplement bud­geted funds. This means that other monies designated for education are redirected when gambling revenue arrives.

As for economic develop­ment, Iowa's experience with riverboat gambling has proven the opposite. As reported by U.S. News and World Report (April 1, 1991), after enjoying an initial monopoly on river­boat gambling, Iowans learned the bitter truth that competi­tion makes the politics of gam­bling hard to control. The more gambling outlets there are, the less good they do in revitalizing rotting communi­ties and helping local govern­ment pay their bills. Why? Because the high-spending gamblers stay in the casinos, while the ghetto neighbor­hoods surrounding the extrava­gant pleasure palaces remain devastated.

It must also be said that cer­tain economic costs rise with the appearance of gambling. Current costs from gambling include bankruptcies, fraud, embezzlement, unpaid debts, and increased criminal justice expenses. One study calculated an estimate of $13,200 per problem gambler per year in 1993 dollars. Applied to a state like Iowa, a 1/2 percent increase in problem gambling amounts to a bill of $73 mil­lion paid by the private and public sector economies. Hidden, future costs from gam­bling include increased addic­tion, with associated rise in bankruptcies, broken families, lost jobs, crime and treatment. Another rising cost is passed on by insurance companies, who are now viewing compul­sive gambling as a disease, pay­ing treatment centers for hand­ing what is euphemistically called "depression" — which is a medical condition that insur­ance companies will cover.

Christian Answers←⤒🔗

Permit us, within the brief space remaining, to sketch sev­eral essential components of a Christian response to contem­porary gambling. We could arrange them under the head­ings of "word response" and "deed response."

"Word response" includes teaching — ourselves, our chil­dren, our neighbors, our politicians — about the biblical meaning of work. One source of that meaning is Ephesians 4:28, "Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need." The dignity, honor, and high calling of any labor need to be communicated in nurture and teaching. The duty of working is emphasized by the apostle Paul in Scripture, when he writes, "For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a dis­orderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies" (2 Thess. 3:10-12).

This "word response" includes inculcating a perspec­tive on stewardship, beginning with the confession that "The earth is the LORD's, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein" (Ps. 24:1). Such a perspective will include lessons on picking up toys, hanging up clothes, keeping rooms and cars and bodies clean. Remembering that the love of money — not money itself! — is the source of all kinds of evil (1 Tim. 6:10) will keep us from viewing work as simply a means to money, and to keep us from fantasizing about the freedom and fun more money would bring.

The teaching labors of par­ents and educators and the church must apply very specifi­cally the doctrines of God (providence), of eschatology (the future), of man (why am I here on earth?), and others in terms of the widespread and permeating gambling fever.

But Christians are also called to "deed response." By this I refer to the obligation we have to address "market causes" that fuel gambling. Too often the Christian response is sim­ply negative. Now, don't mis­understand what I am saying. Yes, Christians ought to be saying, in ways and forums available to them, that gam­bling is wrong. But the Christian response cannot be only negative. Becoming informed and involved citizens and market players, a Christian response will need to act cre­atively with respect to econom­ic decay and political appetite, two of the most powerful stim­uli behind legalized gambling. When city planners and state legislators "bank" on gambling profits in order to revive the economic climate and supply needed revenue, then our "deed response" to gambling should consist of a challenge-with facts and reasoned argu­ments — to those more systemic problems and values embodied in structures and policies.

One more thing: Let's make sure our own forms of institu­tional fundraising and personal entertainment stay as far removed as possible from the style and techniques of the gaming industry!

The high costs of gambling ­surely "a greedy man brings trouble to his family" (Prov. 15:27). Gambling costs more than money. It can cost a per­son his reputation, his job, his family, even his soul. It can cost a society its collective virtue, its economic incentive, and its social stability.