Evangelists Stand Against Sports Betting In Louisiana
By
The
pace of change has accelerated rapidly when it comes to America's relationship
with gambling in recent years. It isn't so long ago that the practice was
frowned upon outside Nevada (and Las Vegas in particular), but now it feels
like it goes on everywhere, and even states that haven't yet adopted new sports
betting laws are planning to do so in the near future. The Supreme Court's
ruling to permit sports betting on American soil in 2018 opened the floodgates
to the casino industry, and since then, it's spread across the country with incredible speed, to the point where it’s permitted in more places than it
isn’t as of September 2020. Now even relatively conservative states like
Louisiana appear to be ready to join in. Many
Christians find themselves uncomfortable with gambling, and feel like it's a
sin. Before we go any further, we should underline the fact that nowhere in the
Bible is the practice of gambling expressly prohibited. It does, however, teach
us that the love of money at any expense is wrong. This can be seen in Matthew
6:21, Ecclesiastes 5:1, and Proverbs 14:11. If you occasionally place a wager
on a lottery using only the money you can afford to lose, you can do so without
feeling guilty. Those who pursue gambling with a view to making huge profits or
at the expense of everything else, however, would struggle to make such a hobby
fit within the parameters of a Christian lifestyle. It's not so much the act of
gambling itself that Christians often find themselves disapproving of; it’s the
effect that it can have when the hobby gets out of control. Perhaps
because of the reasons we've outlined above, there's been a long history of
Christians and Christian groups opposing the expansion or spread of gambling,
and that's proven to be the case once again in Louisiana. At the time of
writing, a cash-rich pro-gambling lobby called "Louisiana Wins" is
pushing the November legislation that could see sports betting activity become
legal in the state, and have paid for a pro-gambling television commercial to
be broadcast in the middle of the game between New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay
Buccaneers this weekend. All they need to succeed in getting the practice
authorized is to achieve a positive result among voters in the majority of the
state's 64 parishes. That's likely to be a comfortable victory for the
pro-gambling lobby in the more densely populated areas of the state, but in
smaller and more rural regions, where Evangelical Christians are more likely to
gather, "Louisiana Wins" is likely to have a harder time making its
case. Louisiana’s laws on gambling are among the most conflicted
and confusing in the whole country. While gambling is permitted in a few
land-based casinos and on specialized riverboats, gambling in public in an
unauthorized space is a criminal offense, and gambling on the internet is
totally out of the question. While online slots might be making millions of dollars
in tax revenue in other parts of the country, they can’t be accessed legally in
Louisiana. It’s not only online slots websites that can’t enter the market; any
type of gambling activity that involves the internet - or even a computer - is
banned in the state. One of the effects of the proposed new sports betting laws
might change that. As well as legalizing sports betting, the backers of the
bill want to legalize iGaming. That means gambling would be allowed online, and
that might open the doors to online slots websites, online roulette wheels, and
any other form of web-based gambling you might be able to imagine. It
isn’t difficult to see why states want to take advantage of the ongoing sports
betting boom. After a brief setback earlier in the year when all sporting
events were canceled for safety reasons, the practice is now back with a bang,
and gamblers have returned to the hobby with a seemingly renewed appetite. Just
last month, New Jersey reported a record profit of $668m. Not all of that money goes to the state - in fact, only a relatively
small percentage of it does - but month on month, the steady stream of income
helps the state government fund public improvements and projects that wouldn't
have been possible to fund without that money. There are obvious pitfalls -
both social and moral - when it comes to gambling, but there are also great
things that can be accomplished with the revenue that it raises. Clearly, this
is a difficult issue to wrestle with, but the small pockets of devoted
Christians in those rural Louisianan areas have decided to stand against it.
Unfortunately
for them, their efforts may be in vain. The Coushatta Casino Resort has
recently gained approval for a 'social' casino and sportsbook that will
simulate the experience and functionality of a fully functional casino website.
The games on offer will include slots, live 'card tables,' and a full sportsbook
contained within a purpose-built website. The website has been allowed to
launch because the games are played with 'fun' money as opposed to real money,
but it will provide the people of Louisiana with the ability to work out how
the games work before they get the chance to play them for real further down
the line. There are even some games that allow non-cash prizes to be won for
successful performances within them. In theory, the website could be converted
to offer the same games for real money should it become legal to do so at the
end of this year after a successful vote. The
matter of whether or not to oppose gambling is a matter for every Christian to
consider individually. As we said earlier, there’s no hard rule against
gambling anywhere in the Bible, but there’s a lot of moral guidance that
suggests that anyone seeking to make a career out of gambling might be
committing a sin. Any increased availability of gambling facilities is bound to
be a temptation, and community-minded Christians will understandably be
concerned about the effects of this on the people and institutions around them.
As always, we must remain vigilant, speak our minds, and let our faith be our
guide as we address these distinctly 21st-century problems.
