January 19, 1999
Will the VLT question ever be settled? A provincial vote recorded public opinion but somehow the matter is still up in the air. Human rights continue to blur the issue.
Rights, a worldwide hot topic, spans the extremes. For instance, minority groups cry for the right to be heard and teenagers demand the right to drive the family car. Women ask for equal pay for equal work and my grandchildren each want the right to the TV remote. Criminals ask for the right to vote and dissatisfied spouses think they have the right to be unfaithful. Writers demand their copyrights and everyone wants to stand at the front of the line.
Which demands are legitimate? How can anyone know? In many cases, if all are equally valid still some must give in to others. So who decides which rights take priority?
It is irrational to give looters the right to enter broken windows and take what they want whenever they want it. It is also irrational to give angry people the right to express their feelings by spraying a shotgun in a school ground. Is it irrational to give people the right to gamble?
Of course playing VLTs is not the same as stealing or killing but excessive or compulsive gambling takes a toll on innocent people. How much is excessive? Can human rights have limits in this case? Is it possible to agree on what those limits should be?
Endless questions with debatable answers should make us ask what God says but the Bible says nothing about VLTs and very little about gambling. It does mention human rights.
God defines rights and freedom far differently than we do. While He allows us choices, He does not define that freedom as a right to do whatever we want. Instead, He says “not all things are beneficial.” In God’s mind, making choices is a privilege, a responsibility, even an opportunity. He also says if we think we are free to fulfill our own wants, we are actually slaves.
How can this be? To understand God’s perspective, we have to realize that the essence of sin is selfishness. When we do our own thing contrary to the commands of God, we sin. The New Testament book of Romans asks, “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey . . . ?”
God says: choose to either serve Him and be free to become all He intended when He created us, or choose to be a slave to ourselves and sin. This is strong talk, but He gives no other options.
Slaves are unpaid workers who cannot say no to their boss. This sounds like a person addicted to gambling. VLTs rarely pay back the people who use them. Instead, they are designed to make a profit. Not only that, they rob people of discernment. In thinking they are doing as they please, gamblers are actually in bondage to an expensive, thrill-seeking habit they cannot break.
Families of gambling slaves also pay the price of this so-called “freedom.” They lose their “rights.” Money for their groceries and utility bills is spent on “roads, education and health care” or it goes into the pockets of whoever owns the establishments that house the machines.
You and I also pay a price for this “freedom.” Our taxes go up because families draw more deeply from social services. Gamblers who want to quit need therapy too, and someone must pay for their increased needs. We also pay in pain if the addicts are people we love.
Those who make money on the machines are caught in a “love of money” trap that the Bible calls the “root of all evil.” They cannot set themselves free and will eventually “pierce themselves with many griefs.” This demand for “rights” is costly and deceptive, not true freedom.
Freely giving everyone the “right” to gamble results in huge losses. Everyone is trapped by one side of it or another — and everyone pays a price.
Showing posts with label gambling has consequences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gambling has consequences. Show all posts
Friday, August 11, 2017
Friday, January 27, 2017
Addicted to gambling? .......... Parables 542
January 28, 1997
The town of Rocky Mountain House has been making headlines. Some citizens are outraged that their community of less than 6000 population has deposited nearly $3 million a year into fewer than 40 video lottery terminals, VLTs for short. These machines are supposed to bring in funds that are returned to the community but in Rocky, the return is slightly more than $52,000. Many are upset over this imbalance and also what gambling is doing to their community.
Gambling can be a terrible addiction, particularly for people working in isolated places. My husband tells of men in a camp construction project that traveled home after they lost their entire pay cheque. What do a husband and father say to his wife and children when he has no money for groceries and rent?
Gambling supposedly offers risks and therefore thrills. Those who do it also hope for the “big one,” the windfall, instant cash, a spectacular prize. Sometimes it happens. However casinos, bingo halls and even VLTs make a profit for the people who run them, not the people who put in their dollars and take the risks.
Rocky Mountain House statistics are one example. If the above figures are correct and if everyone who lived there played the VLTs, each citizen would contribute nearly $500 per year to the machines in order to total the $3 million sent to the government. However, if $52,000 is divided by the same population figure, then the payback averages less than $9 per person.
Putting faith in a machine that promises so little seems illogical but for those who gamble, false hope overcomes logic. Thankfully, we can put our faith in something more sure and have a sure hope, one that will not disappoint us.
If people play the VLT’s because of concern for physical necessities, Jesus said, “ . . . those who not know Me worry about such things but as for you, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
That is an absolute promise made by the Son of God. He invites those who worry about their needs to trust Him, act accordingly and He will make sure they have enough. The Bible says, “God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”
If people hope for a windfall so they will at last “be somebody,” God promises significance to those refuse to gamble and instead hope in Him. He said to His people, “Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”
If gambling is merely a thrill, an exciting thing to do, faithfully following the Lord offers that too. The Apostle Paul wrote of his experiences, which to me are not appealing but to risk-takers, his life sounds like an adventure. Among them he mentions being shipwrecked, spending time in the open sea, being constantly on the move, in danger from rivers, bandits, false teachers, his own countrymen and Gentiles. In all that he experienced, he also knew the presence of God and experienced His power and faithfulness. To those who share that relationship, closely following God is far more thrilling than gambling, even winning at gambling.
If gambling is for that big surprise, an unexpected windfall, then consider the payoff from following Christ. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or family (or gambling or anything else) for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.”
It may sound risky, but the payoff is guaranteed — because whatever God promises, He delivers!
The town of Rocky Mountain House has been making headlines. Some citizens are outraged that their community of less than 6000 population has deposited nearly $3 million a year into fewer than 40 video lottery terminals, VLTs for short. These machines are supposed to bring in funds that are returned to the community but in Rocky, the return is slightly more than $52,000. Many are upset over this imbalance and also what gambling is doing to their community.
Gambling can be a terrible addiction, particularly for people working in isolated places. My husband tells of men in a camp construction project that traveled home after they lost their entire pay cheque. What do a husband and father say to his wife and children when he has no money for groceries and rent?
Gambling supposedly offers risks and therefore thrills. Those who do it also hope for the “big one,” the windfall, instant cash, a spectacular prize. Sometimes it happens. However casinos, bingo halls and even VLTs make a profit for the people who run them, not the people who put in their dollars and take the risks.
Rocky Mountain House statistics are one example. If the above figures are correct and if everyone who lived there played the VLTs, each citizen would contribute nearly $500 per year to the machines in order to total the $3 million sent to the government. However, if $52,000 is divided by the same population figure, then the payback averages less than $9 per person.
Putting faith in a machine that promises so little seems illogical but for those who gamble, false hope overcomes logic. Thankfully, we can put our faith in something more sure and have a sure hope, one that will not disappoint us.
If people play the VLT’s because of concern for physical necessities, Jesus said, “ . . . those who not know Me worry about such things but as for you, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
That is an absolute promise made by the Son of God. He invites those who worry about their needs to trust Him, act accordingly and He will make sure they have enough. The Bible says, “God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”
If people hope for a windfall so they will at last “be somebody,” God promises significance to those refuse to gamble and instead hope in Him. He said to His people, “Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”
If gambling is merely a thrill, an exciting thing to do, faithfully following the Lord offers that too. The Apostle Paul wrote of his experiences, which to me are not appealing but to risk-takers, his life sounds like an adventure. Among them he mentions being shipwrecked, spending time in the open sea, being constantly on the move, in danger from rivers, bandits, false teachers, his own countrymen and Gentiles. In all that he experienced, he also knew the presence of God and experienced His power and faithfulness. To those who share that relationship, closely following God is far more thrilling than gambling, even winning at gambling.
If gambling is for that big surprise, an unexpected windfall, then consider the payoff from following Christ. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or family (or gambling or anything else) for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.”
It may sound risky, but the payoff is guaranteed — because whatever God promises, He delivers!
Monday, October 27, 2014
What happens when you take chances ............................. Parables 188
October 25, 1989
A few years ago, Atlantic City in the United States legalized certain gambling facilities. In came game tables, slot machines and a variety of games of chance. Since that time, according to a radio news report, the crime rate has risen to the highest of any city in that state. Of course, the police force has more than doubled.
From the crimes committed, it would appear that the casinos, or at least the big money associated with games of chance, attract more than card sharks and gambling addicts. It’s also obvious that not everyone makes money at the tables. The welfare rolls have grown rapidly. Social services, using tax dollars, take care of those who came to win and found out it didn’t happen that way.
A few other interesting notes about Atlantic City, again according to my source: thirty-three million people visit this fairly good-sized city every year but (are you ready for this?) there are no car washes, no theaters, and only one grocery store. (Can you imagine that in smaller Fort Saskatchewan?) While those figures may be hard to believe, even if you cut them to half the visitors and twice the services, they still would be appalling statistics. No wonder the population has dropped 20%. The line-ups for a carton of milk would send most of us looking for another place to live!
What happened to Atlantic City?
Certainly some will blame their situation on factors other than the gaming tables but there are certain moral and spiritual laws that govern the life of a city or a nation just as certain physical laws govern plants and animal life. Anyone who violates the laws of nature finds that one of the most basic of them is entirely true: “You reap what you sow” In other words, plant oats, you get oats. Plant tulips and tulips come up. Don’t water the roses and they will die. Green thumb or not, we know there is little we can do to change how nature works.
However, somehow the human race seems easily deluded into thinking we can do whatever we like in other realms and it will not affect us or anyone else. Someone in Atlantic City thought casinos would boost the economy and prosper the city. But the Maker of the human race tells us the same law about reaping and sowing applies to the way we live too. We might try to rationalize it away or set up so called safeguards to prevent consequences, but it holds true... go against the law of God and there will be consequences. The book of Proverbs says it like it is: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” (14:34)
I don’t know how many righteous people lived in Atlantic City ten years ago. Maybe they were the 20% that moved out. But I do know that it doesn’t take the wisdom of Solomon to see what gambling has done to the neighborhood.
By the way, the word gambling is not in the Bible, but all through Scripture, we are commanded to “trust in the Lord with all our heart.” He promises to take care of those who put their confidence in Christ, not in the flip of a deck of cards, or the spin of a wheel or the toss of some dice.
Closely connected to gambling is the hope of great riches, but Jesus said no one can serve two masters. We must serve God -- not a game of chance, or the money we hope to gain. The Bible says it is God who causes us to prosper. Gambling easily robs people of not only whatever extra God may have profited them but the casinos often leave broken and destitute people -- who usually turn to social assistance for help.
The city fathers in Atlantic City didn’t seem to realize if a person plants a spud, they’ll get a spud. The consequences may vary from their city to a smaller community, but without righteousness to exalt them, the only thing that is lifted up is the bank accounts of the high rollers.
A few years ago, Atlantic City in the United States legalized certain gambling facilities. In came game tables, slot machines and a variety of games of chance. Since that time, according to a radio news report, the crime rate has risen to the highest of any city in that state. Of course, the police force has more than doubled.
From the crimes committed, it would appear that the casinos, or at least the big money associated with games of chance, attract more than card sharks and gambling addicts. It’s also obvious that not everyone makes money at the tables. The welfare rolls have grown rapidly. Social services, using tax dollars, take care of those who came to win and found out it didn’t happen that way.
A few other interesting notes about Atlantic City, again according to my source: thirty-three million people visit this fairly good-sized city every year but (are you ready for this?) there are no car washes, no theaters, and only one grocery store. (Can you imagine that in smaller Fort Saskatchewan?) While those figures may be hard to believe, even if you cut them to half the visitors and twice the services, they still would be appalling statistics. No wonder the population has dropped 20%. The line-ups for a carton of milk would send most of us looking for another place to live!
What happened to Atlantic City?
Certainly some will blame their situation on factors other than the gaming tables but there are certain moral and spiritual laws that govern the life of a city or a nation just as certain physical laws govern plants and animal life. Anyone who violates the laws of nature finds that one of the most basic of them is entirely true: “You reap what you sow” In other words, plant oats, you get oats. Plant tulips and tulips come up. Don’t water the roses and they will die. Green thumb or not, we know there is little we can do to change how nature works.
However, somehow the human race seems easily deluded into thinking we can do whatever we like in other realms and it will not affect us or anyone else. Someone in Atlantic City thought casinos would boost the economy and prosper the city. But the Maker of the human race tells us the same law about reaping and sowing applies to the way we live too. We might try to rationalize it away or set up so called safeguards to prevent consequences, but it holds true... go against the law of God and there will be consequences. The book of Proverbs says it like it is: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” (14:34)
I don’t know how many righteous people lived in Atlantic City ten years ago. Maybe they were the 20% that moved out. But I do know that it doesn’t take the wisdom of Solomon to see what gambling has done to the neighborhood.
By the way, the word gambling is not in the Bible, but all through Scripture, we are commanded to “trust in the Lord with all our heart.” He promises to take care of those who put their confidence in Christ, not in the flip of a deck of cards, or the spin of a wheel or the toss of some dice.
Closely connected to gambling is the hope of great riches, but Jesus said no one can serve two masters. We must serve God -- not a game of chance, or the money we hope to gain. The Bible says it is God who causes us to prosper. Gambling easily robs people of not only whatever extra God may have profited them but the casinos often leave broken and destitute people -- who usually turn to social assistance for help.
The city fathers in Atlantic City didn’t seem to realize if a person plants a spud, they’ll get a spud. The consequences may vary from their city to a smaller community, but without righteousness to exalt them, the only thing that is lifted up is the bank accounts of the high rollers.
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