For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
- 1 Timothy 6:10
Wealth from gambling quickly disappears; wealth from hard work grows.
- Proverbs 13:11 (TLB)
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
- Matthew 6:24
I guess that I am on a recurring theme here, but I have rested from my labors when a sporting event is on television lately. It seems that every other commercial is about gambling. The announcers cannot stop talking about the spread or how an unexpected player was making someone rich.
I was taught that you can gamble, but you should only gamble the money that you can afford to lose. I never had disposable cash. My wife bought a lottery ticket on occasion, and she won a few times, mostly winning the next ticket. Once she won $150. She went nuts, and that’s the point.
I have been seeing this commercial that shows a guy standing next to a field. Frankly, I have never looked at the field, but I think it is brown, indicating that it is near harvest season. Then he hears someone coming down the road. He looks, and there is this tandem bicycle. You know, the bicycle built for two? This bicycle is built for infinite; you never see the end of the bike. The people riding the bike have this zombie-like stare. They are all chanting the tagline for the gambling company. Then a couple of the riders talk about something. I have no idea what. They are speaking so quickly, there is not one distinguishable syllable, but then again. I do not like rap music for the same reason. There is an empty seat on the bike and the guy on the side of the road jumps on. Then the camera shows a portal with swirling lights. The bikers begin to disappear into this portal. But what I focus on is beyond the portal. Everyone disappears into the portal, but no one comes out the other side.
While I am sure the company has made money off this commercial, but what I see is a bunch of blind people leading more blind people into oblivion. Crazed at the chance of making a dollar, they ride off, following the leader, into nothingness. No one comes out the other side of the portal flashing the cash that was won. No one comes out at all.
Think about it. If the company can afford to make such a commercial, buy expensive advertising time on television, and then pay all their staff, and then still make money, is there much of a chance that anyone makes money off the bets that they make? If these gambling places were not making money by the boatload, there would not be so many of them. And that money is made by unwise bets from people who do not believe God gives them enough.
I have heard that some of these companies reward you with cash for future bets, and cashing out to get real cash is next to impossible. Maybe they have cleaned that up, but I doubt it. I had a friend who invested in bitcoin and was making a great profit, but then he needed some cash and nearly lost all his gains trying to cash out. I have a feeling that it is equally hard making real money in the gambling places, but you pay real money into it.
I watched the commercial on YouTube. In the field behind the man standing there is a crop of hay, baled and ready to be used or sold. The guy by the side of the road abandons a guaranteed money crop to throw away the money that he has not yet gained. Remember, they follow the leader. All go in. None come out.
Gambling can become an addiction just like drugs and alcohol. A lottery ticket on a rare occasion tells God that you are dissatisfied with what God provides, but there is not much harm done otherwise, but putting the grocery money down on a chance to win the big one… Never bet what you cannot afford to lose. And God does not want us to gamble at all with what He has given us to meet our needs.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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