Should Christians Buy Lottery Tickets?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.Here is this week’s question:Dear Mr. Hunt and Mr. McMahon, What is your view on gambling?I can’t find a direct biblical prohibition.Even the casting of lots seems to be a mixture of pros and cons.

Tom:

Dave, there isn’t any doubt, gambling today is epidemic with our lotteries and all of those things destroying households and so on.I can even remember growing up, my dad was a compulsive gambler, and it cost us big time.On the other hand, they start football games with a flip of a coin, you know?What do we say about this?

Dave:

Well Tom, we know that it’s destructive and we know that lives are ruined.Maybe hundreds of thousands at least.People who put money into the lottery that they can’t afford to put in and then they hope well, if they put in a little more and a little more, and a little more, and one person—I don’t know how many, gets the big bucks, but very few, and their lives are destroyed.Suddenly they’ve become multi-millionaires, they don’t know what to do with it and even that has destroyed peoples lives.So we know the effects of gambling.I believe we could put it under the category of tempting God.In other words, well I’m going to take my money and I’m going to throw it into this pot, and I’m going to trust that God will make me be the winner.Now, you could say well how about investing in the stock market?You are tempting God there too.Well, you are trying to make an investment and you are trying to use good common sense and investments do turn out well.

Tom:

Some don’t.

Dave:

They may go down, but they eventually come up.But in this case it’s not prudent.We are to be prudent.It’s not rational.The chances that you might get this are just astronomical.

Tom:

Yes, Dave, wouldn’t it come back to sort of the bottom line here from a biblical standpoint, love of mammon, love of money?The gambling that you are talking about even from an investment standpoint—if you are putting more money in than you’ve got, or what’s your goal, what’s your objective?Is it for money?And greed—I think you’d at least have to address some of those issues with regard to what you are doing.On the other hand, flipping a coin at a football game to see which side gets the ball first, or which end of the field they defend, that has more to do with fate.

Dave:

I wouldn’t call that gambling.I would say it’s a way of arriving at a decision.You have to make a choice between two, but it’s not gambling.

Tom:

Dave, Proverbs:18:18The lot causeth contentions to cease, and parteth between the mighty.
See All... says, “The lot causeth contentions to cease and parteth between the mighty.”So you are making decisions.I think that’s what that verse is referring to.But what about the casting of lots?We find that throughout the scriptures.

Dave:

Well what that verse in Proverbs is referring to—you have a contention among certain parties, it doesn’t tell you what the contention is, you could imagine what the contention may be.Well I was here first and this belongs to me and you can’t come to a just decision based upon the evidence, then okay guys, we’ll flip for it would be one way of settling it.Now that’s not saying that this will be a right decision.It’s say that whatever the coin comes up with, that we will have to abide by that.Your chance is as good as my chance and somebody else’s chance.In that situation, I don’t know of any other way to solve the problem.If you cannot come to a factual basis of deciding between parties in a situation then you would have to cast lots.Now the apostles did it again to be the successor of Judas.

Tom:

And Matthias was chosen through the casting of lots.

Dave:

Right.And you have that in a number of examples in the Bible.Now in those cases, they are trusting God to make it come out the way that it should.They are not trusting this to chance and they are using this as a way that God will show them.Lord, we don’t know, what is your will?You haven’t spoken to us on that, so we are going to cast lots, to see among these various candidates to see which one will succeed Judas.That is entirely different from going to Las Vegas, or putting money in a pool, or the lottery.They are not in the same category.I don’t think you could defend gambling from the Bible.We are supposed to earn an honest living with the work of our hands and so forth with hard work.And to think that you could—well I’m going to be one that’s going to get millions of dollars if I put an investment in this lottery.It’s not prudent; it’s not biblical.We’re on the defensive now Tom, so I’ll say to this person, show me a verse in the Bible that says you ought to do this.But Christ in us, this is to be our life and we are to let all things to be done as the Lord would guide us.Now if the Lord guides you to invest in a lottery then I won’t complain.But until then, I think you shouldn’t.

Tom:

Right and the problem here is I hope people won’t delude themselves into thinking that’s the way he would have you go about it, because as you said, biblically we can’t find a good reason to do that.