The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

In 1958, political theorist, Isaiah Berlin, delivered a lecture entitled “Two Concepts of Liberty,” which established two strands of thought on the concept of freedom.

• “Negative liberty,” he argued, is “freedom from,” with the ability of persons to do as they wished without interference from others.  Philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Stuart Mill advocated for this view, which established the right to property, religion and speech beyond the grasp of the state.
• “Positive liberty,” he continued, is “freedom to,” by which he meant the triumph of a person’s “higher nature” over his low impulses and outside influence—“a doer—deciding, not being decided for, self-directed and not acted upon by external nature.”  But positive liberty necessitated that the role of the state was to place constraints on what it citizens could do legally.  Such constraints were for the benefit of the citizens—just as children are compelled to go to school, even if they do not grasp why.

For much of recent history, the state has placed significant constraints on its citizens when it came to gambling.  Gambling was considered a vice, an evil that needed to be regulated and controlled.  For example, early Puritan settlers in New England banned possession of cards or dice, even at home. A second wave of restrictions dates to campaigns for “temperance” in the early 1900s. There has been slow, piecemeal liberalization since, starting with horse-racing and lotteries in many states. For a long time Nevada was the only state to allow casinos. A Supreme Court ruling in 1987 paved the way for gambling on Native American reservations. Some states also allowed casinos on boats. Over the last two decades other constraints have been slowly removed.  The result now is that America is in the midst of a gambling frenzy.  Indeed, The Economist recently reported on “a craze for betting [that] is sweeping over America. This year Americans are on track to wager nearly $150bn on sports, having bet a paltry $7bn in 2018. Another $80bn is being wagered in online casinos; in the few weeks when election gambling was legal before the presidential vote, hundreds of millions of dollars were placed on the outcome. Even physical casinos are spreading.”  What follows is a summary of this most helpful article in The Economist:

1. “The [gambling] revolution has been unleashed by the overturning of bans, the rise of always-available betting apps and a booming economy. It is turning gambling into a mammoth business. Americans may wager as much as $630bn online by the end of the decade, quadrupling gambling companies’ revenues from sports-betting and virtual casinos. Earlier this year the market capitalization of Flutter, a company that owns online betting platforms including FanDuel, the biggest sports-betting site in America, overtook the biggest behemoth in physical casinos, Las Vegas Sands. Gambling is changing the nature of sports, too, invigorating fans and enlivening broadcasting.”
2. “In part America’s boom reflects the fact that it is catching up with the rest of the world. For decades Uncle Sam confined gambling to casinos, which themselves were restricted to Las Vegas, tribal reservations or riverboats. America’s attitudes to sex, drugs, alcohol and gambling are shaped by its puritanical past. In many states, liquor cannot be sold before church wraps up on Sunday. Hollywood long followed a morality code, which barred depictions of illegal drugs or ‘licentious’ nudity and warned film-makers not to make criminals appear sympathetic.  But court rulings in recent years have paved the way for states to legalize and regulate gambling. Many of them, thirsty for new revenue streams, have flocked to gambling as a money-spinner. In 2018 sports-betting was legal only in Nevada. Now it is permitted, with some restrictions, in 38 states. By contrast, sports-betting has long been legal in Australia, Canada and much of Europe and South America. It has been legal in Britain since the 1960s.”
3. “Another reason for the boom is technology. The ability to bet using your smartphone, and from the stadium or comfort of your own sofa, has boosted bookmakers and online casinos everywhere. Through apps, bookies can offer punters countless types of bet, from play-by-play wagers, to how many fouls a team will commit or yards a player will gain. These can be combined and bundled up into ‘parlays’, which pay out only if all bets come good. Even as online-gambling revenues have soared by 40% year on year in America, they are growing by double digits in places as varied as the Philippines and Poland.  Considering gambling’s seedy, unsavory reputation, it is tempting to write all this off as unhealthy and dangerous. And it is true that, for some, gambling is a ruinous addiction. However, whereas state lotteries are disproportionally played by the poor, the new forms of gambling are less regressive. Sports punters are mostly relatively well-off young men. According to one survey 44% of them earn more than $100,000 a year, compared with 28% of full-time workers.”
4. “The leading provider of online sports-betting and online casinos estimates that by 2030 online gambling will generate some $60bn-70bn in revenue each year, three or four times today’s haul. Then there is the conventional casino business, which generates around $85bn in annual revenue, but would see that number jump if New York and other states mulling new licenses, such as Texas, went ahead and issued them.”
5. “More esoteric forms of speculation, although not technically gambling in most regulators’ eyes, are growing equally fast. Day-traders are loading up on futures and options that expire in hours, as a way to bet on how a share-price will move in the very short term. Most such contracts earn little or no return, but some yield ten or 100 times the initial outlay. By the same token, much of the enthusiasm for certain cryptocurrencies can seem like a high-octane game of chance. Tot all of this activity up—betting in physical and online casinos, on sport and on elections—and Americans are on track to wager $700bn in 2024, up from $400bn five years ago. In addition, they are probably betting several hundred billion dollars more each year on short-term equity moves.”
6. “Just as states have embraced sports-betting, a few have also legalized online versions of casino gambling—poker, blackjack, slot machines and so on. iGaming, as it is known, is legal only in Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia. Because location software on phones is so accurate, use of iGaming apps really is restricted to these states. Yet even this small slice of America’s gamblers generated around $6bn in revenue for gaming firms in the first nine months of 2024, roughly 60% of the sum generated by sports-betting firms. Should more states legalize such gambling, the business will presumably grow accordingly. It is easier to make money from, since there is no chance a well-informed gambler can outfox the house. It also lends itself to more frequent betting, since spins of a roulette wheel take up much less time than sports matches. Sports-betting and iGaming already account for nearly a third of all gambling revenue in America, a proportion that is growing fast.”

All of this raises the question of how harmful all this new gambling is.  First of all, a few thoughts on gambling as a goal of public policy.  It seems to me that immoral means have never led to moral ends.  We are no longer skimming the profits from a criminal activity; we are putting the full force of government into the promotion of moral corruption.  Quite frankly, gambling promotion has become a key to many states balancing their respective budgets.  But it is wrong for the state to exploit the weakness of its citizens just to balance the budget.  It is the most unfair and sorrowful form of “painless” taxation.  The money is not coming from a few big bookies but from the pockets of millions of its citizens.  The states have become as hooked on gambling as a source of revenue as any compulsive gambler betting the milk money.  Gambling feeds a get-rich-quick illusion that debilitates society, and thereby causes individual ruin, despair and suicide.  Therefore, gambling corrupts the state and its citizens that both seek “a piece of the action.”

Second, how does state-approved gambling impact people’s lives?

1. Legalized gambling sidetracks a great deal of money.  The amounts that people spend on gambling equals or exceeds the total amount given to religious organizations and/or the total amount spent on elementary and secondary education.
2. Legalized gambling handicaps a lot of people.  The number of compulsive gamblers in the US is about 5 to 7 % of the population.  Gambling behavior is usually associated with poverty, marital strife, job loss, homelessness and hunger.
3. Legalized gambling victimizes vulnerable members of society—women, youth and ethnic minorities.
4. State-sponsored gambling also seems to break down the resistance of people who would not otherwise gamble.  Gambling addiction has risen precipitously since legalized gambling began several decades ago.
5. State-sponsored gambling has promoted materialism and the fantasy of a life of luxury without labor.

Third, it is difficult to fit gambling into a Christian worldview.  There are several reasons:

1. Gambling encourages the sin of greed and covetousness.
2. Gambling promotes the mismanagement of possessions entrusted to us by God.
3. Gambling undermines absolute dependence on God for His provision.
4. Gambling works at cross purposes with a commitment to productive work.
5. Gambling is a potentially addictive behavior.
6. Gambling threatens the welfare of our neighbor.

In short, it is difficult to view gambling—private or state-sponsored—as ethically virtuous.  It is one of the most telling signs of a dysfunctional civilization in decline; one of the more discouraging aspects of our pursuit of personal autonomy and boundless liberty.  It is now pursued by both individuals and the respective states with greater vigor and greater obsession.  There is perhaps no greater sign of cultural declension than the gambling frenzy sweeping across America.

See The Economist (7 December 2024), pp. 9, 14-16); The Economist (10 July 2010), pp. 3-5—“Special Report on Gambling”; Christianity Today (25 November 1991), pp. 16-21.