Is It Sinful to Gamble on Fantasy Sports?
00:00:00.000 | Well, fantasy sports gambling is a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States and a
00:00:09.040 | young man, a listener to the podcast who wishes to remain anonymous wrote specifically to
00:00:13.880 | ask about fantasy football gambling.
00:00:16.000 | "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:17.360 | Thank you for the podcast.
00:00:18.360 | I'm a big sports fan and I absolutely love playing fantasy football as a hobby.
00:00:23.480 | I started out playing one free season in an online league, but as of late, I've been playing
00:00:28.120 | daily fantasy sports games on DraftKings and FanDuel, a form of gambling which costs money
00:00:33.240 | in entry fees.
00:00:34.620 | The bets I place are rather modest at $20 to $50 per week.
00:00:38.880 | I have not found a lot of Christian resources on the topic.
00:00:41.720 | Pastor John, is modest online sports gambling like this sinful?"
00:00:46.720 | Yes.
00:00:48.080 | I think online gambling in general, little or big, is sinful, whether you call it modest
00:00:56.120 | or exorbitant.
00:00:57.880 | And I've got seven reasons at least that I would encourage this young man to rethink
00:01:06.280 | the way he spends his time and his money as a Christian.
00:01:11.760 | And it's the cumulative effect of these seven observations that caused me to say that what
00:01:20.240 | he's doing is sinful.
00:01:22.960 | But of course, he will need to judge according to the Scriptures and his conscience, because
00:01:32.000 | my words don't make something sinful.
00:01:35.760 | God's words make something sinful.
00:01:38.880 | So here are my reasons I would like to see him rethink his ways and devote his life to
00:01:45.760 | something vastly more important and use his money differently.
00:01:51.480 | Number one, I would remind our young friend that he has one single life to live on this
00:01:58.760 | earth for the glory of Christ, and then comes eternity.
00:02:03.920 | He never gets a redo.
00:02:06.760 | Every day is invested well or is lost forever.
00:02:12.840 | Every breath you take, every minute of life you have is a free gift of God and a trust,
00:02:19.960 | a stewardship, which God says should be lived for his glory, for the magnifying of his Son.
00:02:28.400 | Innocent games can be helpful.
00:02:31.760 | They can be a helpful refreshment to the mind.
00:02:34.480 | They can be a sweetening for relationships, especially with kids, I would say.
00:02:39.600 | It can be a taste of heaven and fellowship.
00:02:43.200 | But in themselves, in a fallen, needy, miserable, tragic, dying, hell-bent world like ours,
00:02:52.880 | they have very little significance.
00:02:57.040 | Our friend calls himself a big sports fan.
00:03:00.760 | He says he absolutely loves fantasy football.
00:03:04.720 | He speaks of multiple avenues of playing.
00:03:08.120 | He talks about putting money on the line.
00:03:12.960 | I would say all this time, all this intensity, all this money show things are out of proportion
00:03:22.120 | in his life.
00:03:24.400 | This to me looks like a tragic waste of a precious, God-given, gifted life.
00:03:31.680 | Number two, I would say that the degree to which a person is absorbed in an unreal world,
00:03:39.320 | to that degree, he needs to give an account for how his living in an unreal world is making
00:03:48.040 | his real-world impact greater for the good of people and the glory of God.
00:03:54.720 | I think our friend should reflect on the fact that the Bible refers to the deceitfulness
00:04:02.040 | of sin, Hebrews 3:13.
00:04:06.020 | That should send off alarms in his mind, because deceit is essentially creating a sense that
00:04:14.040 | what is unreal is more to be desired than what is real.
00:04:18.880 | I would ask our friend, are you not finding thrills by investing your time and your emotions
00:04:27.480 | and your money in unreality rather than reality?
00:04:32.080 | Is that not a problem?
00:04:34.920 | Number three, it seems to me that there is good evidence that our young friend has already
00:04:40.700 | entered a seriously blinding fog.
00:04:45.260 | When he calls putting down $50 a week modest gambling, he's lost touch with reality.
00:04:53.360 | This is not modest.
00:04:54.860 | A nickel might be modest.
00:04:57.140 | This is serious.
00:04:58.500 | $50 a week is $200 a month, $2,400 a year.
00:05:04.260 | One half the world's population lives on $2.50 a day, which is $1,750 a week, which is below
00:05:13.580 | what he's gambling.
00:05:15.540 | Our friend is throwing to the wind up to $50 a week, calling it modest gambling.
00:05:24.180 | So there's good evidence he has lost touch with reality, and I would plead, wake up,
00:05:29.980 | friend.
00:05:30.980 | Wake up.
00:05:32.300 | Number four, it is very difficult to believe that gambling $20 to $50 a week is happening
00:05:38.140 | simply to add an emotional buzz to the entertainment.
00:05:42.580 | That would be bad enough.
00:05:44.280 | But in fact, it is almost certain that his motive includes the desire that he would win
00:05:51.420 | and thus get more money.
00:05:53.040 | The desire to get more money by putting other people's money at risk and doing no biblically
00:06:01.200 | warranted wholesome work is certainly the sign of at least an incipient desire to get
00:06:10.040 | rich, which the Bible says is suicidal.
00:06:15.700 | First Timothy 6:9, "Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation."
00:06:20.500 | That's what's happening.
00:06:22.060 | Into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
00:06:29.580 | "For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils.
00:06:32.620 | It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves
00:06:37.780 | with many pangs."
00:06:40.260 | Number five, our young friend needs to pause and remember none of his money belongs to
00:06:48.260 | him, ultimately.
00:06:50.220 | It all belongs to God.
00:06:53.380 | First Chronicles 29 14, "All things come from you, and of your own have we given you."
00:07:01.580 | And I would say quite bluntly and forthrightly and confidently, you have no right to risk
00:07:09.260 | God's money this way.
00:07:12.540 | Managers don't gamble with their master's money, period.
00:07:17.300 | Financial trustees may not gamble with the trust fund.
00:07:23.020 | In the parable of the talents, Jesus says that he will take account for how we have
00:07:29.020 | handled his resources, which belong to him.
00:07:34.940 | To gamble with God's money on trivialities like this is a kind of embezzlement.
00:07:41.620 | Number six, gambling is a massive social sickness in our culture, bringing millions and millions
00:07:50.500 | of people to ruin, especially the poor.
00:07:55.420 | It sucks on the poor more than anyone else, the people who can least afford it.
00:08:01.500 | I don't think Christians should be a part of the entire system of lotteries and casinos
00:08:07.640 | and online gambling of any sort.
00:08:10.380 | It is an entire structure of devastation for millions of people with no biblical warrant.
00:08:19.820 | And finally, number seven, and this relates back to the third thing I said, there is a
00:08:25.700 | vastly better way for our friend to find joy in how he uses $50 a week.
00:08:34.260 | The lowest form of the argument would simply be this.
00:08:39.460 | If at age 25 you put away $50 a week into a well-invested stock fund, you will, with
00:08:47.980 | almost no risk, have $237,000 in the bank when you are 50 years old.
00:08:57.300 | It's a house owned free and clear for what you are risking every week on games.
00:09:05.720 | But better—there's a better argument than that.
00:09:09.940 | The sons of this age are smarter than the sons of light.
00:09:13.660 | But better than that would probably be, since our friend seems to have so much discretionary
00:09:20.420 | money, what gloriously happy, helpful, good deeds could you do in people's lives as you
00:09:30.060 | creatively sought out—use all that fantasy creativity and excellence, seek out ways to
00:09:37.540 | invest $50 a week, $200 a month in the causes of justice and gospel spreading and relief
00:09:45.420 | of suffering?
00:09:46.420 | Oh my goodness, how much fun that would be!
00:09:49.700 | Yes.
00:09:50.700 | Believe me, friend, it is more blessed to give than to receive or to invest creatively
00:09:58.620 | in the eternal joys of other people than to play with God's money in the dream world
00:10:05.140 | of fantasy football.
00:10:06.940 | Wow, that ended with a punch.
00:10:10.180 | Thanks for your concerns, Pastor John.
00:10:12.060 | And this is our first foray into online sports gambling on the podcast.
00:10:15.900 | I'm sure there are follow-up questions to be fielded on this topic.
00:10:19.860 | We always welcome those follow-up questions on this or any other theme that you hear on
00:10:23.580 | the podcast.
00:10:24.580 | You can send those to us via email at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:30.020 | Thank you for listening to the podcast over at our online home.
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00:10:50.340 | Charles Spurgeon once said that "There is no joy in this world like union with Christ.
00:10:55.860 | The more we can feel it, the happier we are."
00:10:59.220 | That's a great quote.
00:11:01.700 | Union with Christ is one of the great prominent themes of the New Testament, but what exactly
00:11:04.620 | is it?
00:11:05.620 | We'll explore it next time on Wednesday, Union with Christ.
00:11:08.820 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:11:09.820 | We'll see you then.
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