Daily Devotional
Gambling: The Spirit Of Thievery

January 15, 2017

Ponder This

Gambling is morally wrong. Why? Because nobody wins at gambling without somebody else losing. True, legitimate business is a win-win arrangement.

Let me illustrate: I make a widget. I sell it to you for a dollar. I get the dollar, you get the widget. I win and you win. But in gambling, for every winner, there must be a loser—or more than one. Gambling is profit and pleasure at somebody else’s pain and loss.

If two people meet in a back alley and one puts a gun on the other person and takes what belongs to him, they call it thievery. But if two people meet in the casino and one takes what belongs to another, they call it gambling. Oh, they don’t call it gambling, they call it “gaming.”

When somebody gambles and wins, he has the spirit of thievery. When he gambles and loses, he’s been very foolish. So the Bible says in Habakkuk 2:6, “‘Woe to him who increases what is not his!"