Gambling by it's very nature can become VERY
addictive because it involves greed, a very powerful lust indeed. The vice
of greed is not easily broken. Only through the saving power of the Lord
Jesus Christ and a renewal of our thinking can we escape such pollutions of the
world.
Don't be a fool friend, stay as far away as you can from any type
of gambling. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalms 50:10)—don't you think He
could make you rich if He wanted to? Of course He could.
The world
is filled with all sorts of wicked people doing evil things to get rich,
corrupting the planet with their filth and vermin. From Britney
Spear's whorishness to the creeps who invented the evil Girls Gone Wild
videos, they are all working for the devil.
God will not be
mocked! Galatians 6:7 promises punishment to the evil doers, and rewards
to the righteous. Madonna, MTV, Walt Disney and all the hordes of
Hollyweird will reap the eternal fires of Hell if they do not repent of their
wicked sins.
Please read Sin City! Also,
Mardi Gras is Evil.
Covetousness
is a sin! Gambling feeds off the sin of greed! We are supposed
to be content with what God has given us...
"Let your conversation be
without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath
said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." —Hebrews 13:5
WARNING: Beware
Of Online
Gambling!
The
Devil's gang will stop at nothing to get rich, even if it means cutting
your throat! All of the gambling websites and casinos have the
same things in common—they show you the neon lights and synthetic glamour
upfront; but their backyard is filled with dead men's bones. What most
online gamblers DON'T look at is the legal notice deceitfully hidden at the
bottom of the webpage. Well, I read it for you, and here's what it
says ...
"You
are fully aware that there is a risk of losing money when gambling by
means of the Service and that you are fully responsible for any such
loss." —SOURCE
ALL gambling casinos, whether
online or in Las Vegas, deceitfully want to make you feel like you're going
to a party to have a good time ... lots of fun ... time with friends ...
pretty bright lights; BUT, the down-to-earth truth is that they are a bunch
of cut-throat, God-hating, thugs who will do what they have to do to collect
any money you owe them. The whole concept of online gambling is
immoral. When you first go to many of the casino websites, they ask
you in a pop up message if you want to install the casino software. I
mean, they'll install a gambling casino right on your computer for you! Talk about the Devil coming into your home!
The gambling
industry in the United States alone generates more annual revenues, than
the Hollywood movie industry, music industry and video game industry
sales combined. Americans spend over $54 billion on gambling
annually. Revenues in online gaming business rose from only $800
million to over $2 billion in 1999! By year 2008, it is
estimated that online gambling industry will top over $18 billion
in revenues! —SOURCE
It's a KNOWN FACT that the house
ALWAYS WINS, as you can see in the dollar amounts above. "We don't
consider what we're doing illegal," says
Calvin Ayre, who has become a billionaire from a business that is
against the law in the United States: Internet gambling.
"You won't find it in the
stock listings, but one business that has emerged as a huge moneymaker
is Internet gambling - a pastime of millions of Americans."
SOURCE
(read more)
Casinos use sophisticated
mathematical algorithms in their gambling software to ensure that only a
small percentage of the total money taken in is ever returned to the
gamblers who win. In the end, the Casinos can't suffer a loss. A
few gamblers will win money, most will lose money--but the casino gets
filthy rich!!! I don't know about you, but there's something inside of
me that really gets upset at creeps who act like their my friends, when in
reality I mean nothing more to them than a dollar sign. I hate and
detest gambling casinos!
You'd have to be a complete ignoramus to
gamble online! For Calvin Ayre to amass over a billion dollars with
his immoral online gambling business, a whole LOT of people had to LOSE! Many people are stupid. I say this kindly, but truthfully. I
can't help but ponder at the insanity of so many people today. I mean,
think about it--people voluntarily murder their own children through
abortion, voluntarily destroy their own health with tobacco, voluntarily go
into massive financial debt, voluntarily deface their own bodies with
tattoos, voluntarily believe the fable of evolution, etc, et cetera. Mankind
truly is his own worst enemy.
David Robertson, former chairman of the National Coalition Against
Legalized Gambling, states, "Statistics prove that teen-age Internet
gambling is the fastest growing addiction of the day, akin to drug and
alcohol abuse in the 1930s. It's pernicious, it's evil, it's
certainly one that feeds on those who are the weakest members of society
— and that's the young and the poor." —SOURCE
The Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling, states, "Teenagers
have a problem gambling rate of 10%-17%, a rate 2 to 3 times higher
than the general population." —SOURCE
A 2002 regional survey by the Delaware Council on Gambling Problems
(DCGP) found that more than 30% of all high school students gamble
periodically. And the evidence indicates that gambling is a problem not
only among older teens in high school, but among younger students as
well. The study found that 43% of eighth-grade boys and 19% of eighth
grade girls gamble. —SOURCE
According to Dr. Howard J. Shaffer, Director of the Harvard Medical
School Center for Addiction Studies, "Today, there are more children
experiencing adverse symptoms from gambling than from drugs...and the
problem is growing." —SOURCE
Gambling and Suicide
Citizen Magazine published an
alarming account of gambling addiction and suicide in the July of 2002
issue. Written by Jeff Hooten, this Citizen story describes the destructive
nature of addiction in the lives of two men. There are over 15 million
people that struggle with gambling as an addiction. Suicide attempts for
pathological gamblers are higher than any other addiction. One out of every
five will attempt suicide. Read
The Fever on Citizen Magazine's web-site.
Gambler's Suicide Reveals
Casino's Bottom Line
Solomon Bell's
suicide was, of course, unspeakably tragic-but hardly remarkable. Last week
the Detroit police sergeant, despondent over massive gambling losses, pulled
out his service pistol and killed himself at a blackjack table in one of the
city's new casinos.
The tragedy was unremarkable in that it is merely a microcosm of how the
gambling industry functions on a daily basis. On this day alone, casino
operators enriched themselves by almost $20,000 at the victim's expense.
Sergeant Bell's family, friends, and the Detroit community are impoverished
beyond measure.
To the gambling mercenaries, such public relations indelicacies are merely
part of the price to be paid for this form of "harmless entertainment."
That's why the MotorCity Casino refused to shut down even temporarily in the
face of this tragedy. In fact, within hours gamblers were allowed back into
the area where the suicide occurred, blood-stained carpet notwithstanding.
Explained a casino spokesman: "It's not like Bell died some honorable kind
of death. He chose to kill himself. We saw absolutely no reason to close
down our business and deprive our patrons the use of our fourth floor."
Such crass and heartless reasoning might shock you. It shouldn't. This is
precisely how casinos function-how they must function. Even the most jaded
of gambling executives would go mad were they to come to grips with the
depth of pain and devastation engendered by their venomous product.
Casinos instead attempt to delude with claims that they benefit communities
by creating jobs, tourism and economic development. It is an elaborate
smokescreen; casinos operate solely for the purpose of parting people from
their money. Former Nevada deputy attorney general Chuck Gardner put it
succinctly: "No one in the history of mankind has ever developed or operated
a casino out of a burning desire to improve the lot of humanity."
"It's not like Bell
died some honorable kind of death. He chose to kill himself. We saw
absolutely no reason to close down our business and deprive our patrons the
use of our fourth floor." —MotorCity
Casino Spokesman
A Few Gambling
suicides:
Richard Hagstrom was
a 57-year-old insurance adjuster whose gambling habit started to catch
up with him … He was running into money problems, and it had become the
source of arguments between him and his wife, Charlyn. …police found her
body in her bedroom. Someone had beaten her to death. … Richard Hagstrom
was the authorities’ only suspect. … He shot himself in his brother’s
farmhouse … Richard had accumulated overwhelming gambling debts…
On Linda Raasch’s dining room table lay a
foreclosure notice and several letters demanding payment on overdue
bills. Her electricity was about to be shut off. In the garage, Raasch’s
car was running, the windows rolled down. She was inside, poisoned by
carbon monoxide. She liked to play video poker machines, and she usually
played just three quarters at a time. The quarters added up.
"Suicide attempts among pathological
gamblers are higher than for any of the addictions and second only to
suicide attempt rates among individuals with major affective disorders,
schizophrenia and a few major hereditary disorders," researcher Rachel
Volberg said.
A 16-year-old slit his wrists after losing
$6,000 - four years of newspaper delivery earnings - on the lottery in a
single day.
The Canadian Press has learned that Alberta
recorded gambling in the files of 10 percent of suicide victims in 2001,
while Nova Scotia investigators found it was a factor in 6.3 per cent of
suicides in the last two years. … Alberta medical investigator Dennis
Caufield says gambling-related suicides increased after addictive VLTs
were installed in 1992. "Absolutely, without a doubt," he said in an
interview. "It's a frightening thing … To me, it's quite bizarre that
people become so consumed by this need [to gamble] that they feel the
only way to stop it is to take their own life." -SOURCE
(Read about more gambling suicides)
Gambling casinos are some of the
coldest, deadest, most selfish, cut-throat places on earth. Would to
God they were all shut down forever!!! Someday, when Jesus returns, He
WILL do just that--SHUT THEM DOWN!
Covetousness is a Sin!
It is a sin when we covet
materialistic things. It is rare in America to hear a sermon against being
covetous. America's slogan should be changed to "In Goods We Trust" or
"In Greed We Trust." They are certainly appropriate slogans for such a materialistic and spoiled
nation. We surely don't trust in God anymore. While children die of
starvation in third world nations, we Americans pay billions of dollars a
year to watch people "play" in professional sports.
Players get paid
millions of dollars for kicking some pigskin across a field through some
plumbing on the other end. When a nation can afford to pay athletes ridiculous
7-digit salaries to "play" ball for a living, you know
your nation is spoiled! When a nation spends billions of dollars on it's
"pet" animals while steel industry retirees lose their pensions and veterans beg
on the streets of our cities to survive, our priorities are wrong as a country.
American has forgotten it's military veterans! America is indifferent about the
starving children around the world. I realize that many people do give to
hunger charities, but much of that money gets eaten up in outrageous salaries
and other lucrative expenses. How much of that money actually gets to the starving
people? Why are they still starving? Why aren't we teaching them how
to care for themselves?
It's because of evils in
government, the greed of the rich. The World Bank has actually
been taking over the world's nations for decades now. The result has
been skyrocketing costs and economic devastation for many nations. They're cut-throat thugs. The United Nations pretends like they
care about starving people; but the poor continue to starve. Isn't it amazing how
politicians are always talking about the poor, but the poor never really get
helped?
The poor are always poor--while rich businessmen, televangelists, and politicians
get richer. I'm so sick of lying politicians and televangelists who
lie through their treacherous teeth about helping the less fortunate. Proverb 30:14 proclaims, "There is a generation, whose teeth are as
swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the
earth, and the needy from among men."
America has neglected it's
own poor as well! Americans gamble away BILLIONS of dollars annually!
In fact,
The gambling
industry of today in the U.S. alone is a 50 billion dollar industry! It is not an industry restricted to the realms of the States, but a
worldwide phenomenon that has had gamblers in almost every corner of the
world gambling in casinos, hotels and most recently on the internet. And we have the gall to call ourselves a generous nation? Woe unto
America!
America has neglected it's elderly in
nursing homes across America, not to mention the outrageous artificially
inflated costs of their necessary medical drugs. America is complacent! We blame the politicians but we keep voting for them. The honest truth is
that if 90% of the country failed to vote, the government would care less. Some New World Order puppet will always win. The U.S. government
has been taken over by criminals! Don't believe me? Maybe you'll
believe Congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney.
Living to make money is a fool's game
which brings misery, "For the love of money is the root of all evil:
which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced
themselves through with many sorrows" (1st Timothy 6:10). Perhaps you argue that you only gamble for fun and not to make money. To
that I would say that you're not a very good liar. Everyone who gambles
hopes to make more money or they wouldn't be gambling in the first place. Once again, carefully consider what the Word of God warns ...
"For the love of money is
the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the
faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." —1st Timothy
6:10
Most
people nowadays will do just about anything to get money. This is
exactly what God is saying in 1st Timothy 6:10. It's the "love" of
money that is so evil. What is the "love of money"? Money is
just paper with ink on it, so we know that money in itself isn't evil.
Rather, it's what money can do—it buys us things and pleasure! So the
Word of God is actually warning that the love
of THINGS AND PLEASURE is the root of all evil. This is covetousness.
We read in 2nd Thessalonians 212, "That they all might be damned who
believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." We are commanded in the Word of God NOT to love
this world ... "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the
world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will
of God abideth for ever." God has blessed mankind with the
privilege of enjoying the pleasures and things of this world; BUT, He sets
divine limits and establishes moral Laws for us to obey. Greed and
covetousness are the sins which causes us to cross those moral lines. It is a constant battle in a land as plenteous as America not to become
covetous.
As Christians, we are commanded NOT to be covetous of this
world, "Let your conversation be without covetousness..." (Hebrews
13:5). It's a
disturbing paradox! ... Covetousness is the ROOT of all other sins; yet, it
is not recognized for the villain it is and few preachers preach against
it. A long time before abortion became legal, our nation stopped
recognizing the evils of covetousness. People became HARDENED by the
deceitfulness of sin as Hebrews 3:13 warns.
2,500 Online Gambling Casinos Lure
College Teens Into Debt
Online
predators are going after teens for everything from sex to their money.
According to the following article, there's “2,500 Internet-based casinos
that lure teenagers with offers of free tuition and other prizes. It is
creating what some call an epidemic of gambling — and debt -- on campuses
everywhere.” The Boston Globe reports...
For many on campuses, trouble is in
the cards
By Bella English, Globe Staff | August 22, 2006
Mike Zakarian is president of the
student government at Emmanuel College and co-captain of the baseball
team. He hopes to go to graduate school in education. But he's also a
whiz at online poker. He's so good that, at age 21, he won $12,000 and a
seat at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, where last month he took
home $15,500 more.
Zakarian started playing Texas Hold 'Em with friends in high school, and
moved on to Internet poker in college. He'd win $50 here, $100 there,
and lose only occasionally, he says. His first big score came at the end
of his sophomore year: He put down $40 to enter an online tournament,
and won $4,000.
His earnings have helped pay his tuition and afforded him nice
vacations. But Zakarian hasn't always been cavalier about the game.
``There were times when I could feel myself inside losing control," he
says, ``and I left it for a couple of months until I felt better. I just
didn't want to get caught up in it and lose everything I'd won."
Zakarian was among five Bostonians, none older than 31, who participated
in the 2006 World Series of Poker -- sponsored by PokerStars.com, a site
popular with young players -- after they won online tournaments. Two of
the 10 players who made it to the final table were recent college
graduates, and they took home about $2 million each.
How are college students getting so good at a game that once was the
dominion of older men? The answer lies online, in the 2,500
Internet-based casinos that lure teenagers with offers of free tuition
and other prizes. It is creating what some call an epidemic of gambling
-- and debt -- on campuses everywhere.
Online gambling has spread through high school and college campuses,
ensnaring young men who hope to beat the odds. Sometimes they do. More
often they don't. Greg Hogan, who was president of his class at Lehigh
University, robbed a bank last December to pay a $5,000 debt amassed in
online poker. Hogan, 20, will serve at least 22 months in prison.
``I can tell you it is a problem," says Laurajane Fitzsimons , an
addiction specialist with the counseling center at the University of
Massachusetts at Dartmouth. ``College is a time when students have
freedom from their parents and access to credit cards and money, but
they don't really understand the ramifications of gambling."
Even those who don't cut classes to sit in front of their computer, she
says, report that gambling is on their mind ``all the time," making it
difficult for them to focus on school work. The college has trained
resident advisers to look out for students holed up in their rooms. At
freshman orientation, officials discuss the dangers of alcohol, drugs --
and gambling.
The Massachusetts Council on Gambling held a program last spring with
the state Department of Public Health about gambling on campuses, and it
attracted administrators from 40 schools. ``A lot of them are starting
to realize they need to have policies around it like alcohol and drugs,"
says council spokeswoman Margot Cahoon.
The appeal of online gambling on campus is obvious: It's just a click
away. There's no group to organize, no snacks to serve, no drinks to
pour. You don't have to get dressed. You don't have to make small talk.
You don't have to go home, because you're already there.
Online casinos lure new players by allowing them to practice with ``play
money" and then ``giving" them real money to get started. ``Come grab
your $888 Welcome Bonus today!" promotes one company in an unsolicited
e-mail sent out nationwide. Says another: ``Complete with . . .
state-of-the-art graphics, a knowledgeable and helpful 24/7 phone and
live chat support team, fast payouts and a payout rate of over 97%." It
also offers $300 free, ``just for trying our casino."
What they don't mention is people like the recent Harvard graduate who
gambled away $35,000 online.
SOURCE:
Online poker is creating what some call an epidemic of gambling on
campuses - The Boston Globe
Only in
America will you read about college students paying their tuition by means
of online gambling. It's insane! Billy Sunday (1862-1935) preached against
drinking, dancing and gambling for good reason. There was no television back
then. Dancing was popular before television was invented, which often led to
adultery since there is touching involved in dancing. Billy Sunday wasn't
even preaching against the raunchy sensual dancing that has become popular
since the 1960's. Sunday was preaching against any dancing between unmarried
couples in public.
Booze
was a menace in the old days just as it still is today. Booze got Noah
drunk, which led to a permanent rift in the family
between Ham and Noah. Booze caused
Lot to commit incest with his daughters. David got Uriah drunk in an attempt
to deceive him. Booze has always been associated with evil. You can't name
one good thing that anyone ever did while drunk, and neither can I. Booze is
synonymous with gambling.
State Lotteries are Evil
Photo to Left: An advertisement
icon from New York's state lottery page.
It's a shame that the deliberate
DEINDUSTRIALIZATION of the United States by congress and the
corporations
The lottery is nothing more than organized
white-collar crime and a voluntary tax on the
stupid. Many children have gone hungry because of wasted money on lottery
tickets. Gambling money is "blood money!" I
won't be a part of it. I have never bought a lottery ticket and don't ever
plan to. Many children have been left outside in the car while their
parents went inside some casino to gamble. God hates gambling! The
Bible teaches honest labor. There is nothing in the Bible
about spending your life looking for a way out or working for a living. As gambling becomes
increasingly popular in America, the appreciation for an honest day's work
is deteriorating.
I lived in Illinois (Illinoid) for most of my
life and I believe that the lottery is a multi-billion dollar scam. Lottery organizers originally promised back in 1972 that the money from the
lottery would be used to better the public school system. Chicago has
some of the worst schools in America! Illinois has had plenty of
dishonest governors, mayors and other crooked leaders who have ripped off
the public time and time again. Chicago in particular is one of the
most corrupt cities in the United States. It's just one big
money-siphoning scam after another--everything from ghost payrolls, to the
Hired Truck
Program. So while public schools get worse and the students
continue to fail in Illinois, where is the $1,500,000,000 of lottery revenue
per year going? Probably where all the rest of the money is going ...
in the politicians and lawyers pockets!
Lotteries are prone to scams ...
Lottery is susceptible to fraud, despite the high degree
of scrutiny offered by the organisers. One method
involved is to tamper with the machine used for the
number selection. By rigging a machine, it is
theoretically easy to win a lottery. This act is often
done in connivance with an employee of the lottery firm.
Methods used vary; loaded balls where select balls are
made to popup making it either lighter or heavier than
the rest. Many other ingenious methods too have been
employed.
Some
advance fee fraud scams on the
internet are based on lotteries. The modus operandi of
this fraud is that the trickster sends spam
to all email users in their database congratulating them
on their recent lottery win. Then they proceed to
announce that in order to release funds they must part
with a certain amount (as tax/fees) as per the rules or
risk forfeiture.
Another form of lottery scam
involves the selling of "systems" which purport to
improve a player's chances of selecting the winning
numbers in a Lotto game. These scams are generally based
on the buyer's (and perhaps the seller's)
misunderstanding of probability and random numbers.
SOURCE
State lotteries are synonymous with Las Vegas
gambling. The official website for Massachusetts's state lottery
advertises gambling trips to Caesar's Palace in Vegas--so people can
gamble some more! All of the state lottery websites I visited are as
covetous as can be; yet they sinfully attempt to justify their gambling with
the educational system. It is a sad commentary on the American
people, that we care so little about our own children, that we have to turn
to gambling to raise the money to educate them!!! Woe unto
America! The states try to entice people to gamble by using the same
tactics that con-artists use—showing pictures of new homes, vacation
getaways, flashy advertisements and talk of becoming a millionaire.
It's a disgrace.
According to a study by graduate
student Thomas Garnett, published by the Buckeye Institute in Dayton,
Ohio—pouring lottery proceeds into education actually caused state spending
on schools to shrink. The study demonstrated that after Ohio's 1974
promise to devote all lottery winnings to public schools, state
spending on education dropped from 42 percent of its total budget in 1973 to
29 percent in 1994. Education funded by lottery? I think not!
Lottery ads are, sadly, targeted
most aggressively at people lacking the financial education to know how many
daily tickets are too many. Less than one-quarter of the population
buys nearly three-quarters of all the tickets. Players get hammered by
a 50% loss of capital on every ticket, every day of the year. The net
result for 99.99% of the players is mounting losses, which can demolish
hopes of a comfortable financial life. For context, here's some simple
math: A 50% payback rate will turn $20 million wagered daily in the state
lottery into fewer than two cents within 30 days.
Thirty-nine states have lotteries. Meanwhile, Las Vegas and other gambling centers have convinced America that
visiting their city is good clean fun for the whole family. What's
behind all this "wholesome" gambling, of course, is governmental and
corporate greed. And all this legalizing and sanitizing of gambling
has had many ill effects on our society. When gambling is so
accessible, obviously there are more gamblers—and more people with gambling
problems.
Casinos have become so "family friendly" that it's hard to
distinguish them anymore from Disneyland. So children are exposed to
gambling at a ridiculously young age, and the casinos have an unlimited
supply of future players. State lotteries--which brought in $38
billion in 2003—were called the "numbers racket" in the mobster days, and
similarly prey on the dreams of the poor.
You can't lose if you
don't play!
Gambling: A
Scam Against The 'Little Guy'
By
Ellen Ratner | July 26, 2002
In the year 2000, the
American people – mostly the little guys – sunk some $866 billion into "it,"
most of which was lost. The dollars thrown into this rat hole in 2001 is
likely to be even closer to the $1 trillion dollar mark. Maybe in 2002 we'll
break $1 trillion.
So what's the deal? Enron? WorldCom? Global
Crossing? Guess again.
It's called gambling, and it's an even bigger
scam than cooking the corporate books. Unlike a ruined 401(k), one doesn't
have to wait until retirement to find out that the till is empty – because
casinos, state lotteries, the ponies and illegal betting all take their cut
in the here and now. State governments, organized crime bookies and "the
gaming industry" (which is what legalized gambling prefers to call itself,
much as the military refers to civilian casualties as "collateral damage")
provide millions of fools a chance to part with their money. Commercialized
gambling (non-Indian) is conducted at 429 casinos in 11 states; only two
states in the Union – Utah and Hawaii – actually prohibit all forms of
gambling, and 38 states have lotteries. Added to this are the Indian casinos
– 198 tribes are running 326 gambling holes in 28 states. And here's a real
eye opener – betting websites are thought to number some 34,000! Today on
the Internet, you can lose the kids' college funds, the grocery money or
this month's rent from the comfort of your own living room. Going to hell
has never been more convenient! Needless to say, none of the foregoing stats
include illegal gambling, which just adds gazillions to the overall total
"wagered."
Forget about statistics. How many of you have
waited in line at the convenience store while some Joe or Josephine Six Pack
orders up lottery and scratch tickets like a kid in a candy store? In fact,
just outside that store, have you noticed the increasingly familiar sight of
some poor shmo frantically rubbing a scratch ticket hoping for the big
score? In the old days, the trash outside these places consisted of empty
bottles and cigarette butts; today, it's heaps of losing scratch tickets.
Essentially, the government is now in the same
business that used to be the exclusive province of the Mafia. How did this
happen?
Mostly it happened because the politicians and
the "gaming industry" made a pretty sure bet – they bet that a public dumb
enough to shell out cold cash for a Powerball Lottery where the odds of
winning can be 100,000,000 to 1 would also buy the phony argument that the
proceeds of state sponsored scams actually go to benefit "the kids" in the
form of aid to schools and so forth. In fact, as every state legislator
knows, lottery proceeds often wind up in a state's general fund. In other
words, it's a just a form of taxation.
But is this fair? Most people – even my
Republican friends – concede that some degree of progressivity is
appropriate to raise government revenue. The more one makes, the more one
pays in taxes. But how many Mercedes owners, how many guys and gals wearing
Armani suits have you seen standing in line to buy a lottery ticket? The
dirty secret is that state sponsored gambling in particular preys upon the
working poor, the people whose circumstances lead them to hope that with a
single scratch, all of their problems with inadequate health care, housing
and social services will vanish.
And for those "players" who aren't poor,
gambling creates a bad ethic – the vain hope that they can get something for
nothing. Gambling destroys the connection between success in life and the
real means of achieving it – hard work.
Gambling's other sick legacy is its
encouragement of pathological behavior. Gambling addicts – those who need
the perpetual exhilaration of a bet – constitute 2.5 percent of all
gamblers, although they account for 15 percent of all bets placed. In other
words, the gambling lords depend upon their addicts just like the tobacco
companies and drug pushers depend on theirs.
Washington loves to talk endlessly about
protecting "the little guy." But there's a deafening silence on the subject
of gambling. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why. The
"gaming industry" and local politicians make sure that Washington won't see
the problem. Many of my conservative friends, who love to talk about
Democrats and moral decline, never mention anything about gambling. That's
because Republicans, like Democrats, are up to their necks in gambling money
– both private, state and Native American.
Ellen Ratner is the White House correspondent and
bureau chief for the Talk Radio News service. She is also Washington bureau
chief and political editor for Talkers Magazine. In addition, Ratner is a
news analyst at the Fox News Channel. —SOURCE
Conclusion
I have met so many people
in my lifetime who spent every waking moment of the day trying to figure a way
out of working for a living. It's not God's way! God blesses hard
work, not shady deals and sinful schemes. If you do prosper financially
from your own cheating, evil or conniving... then you are in trouble with the
Lord. Money should not be an issue for the Christian!
The great
Dr. Jack Hyles taught
that there are two ways to be rich:
1. Have all you want
2. Want all you have
If you want all you have, then you are rich indeed
for you already have it. What a truth! It's called being "content." God commands us to be content in Hebrews 13:5. Listen to some words of
wisdom by evangelist Billy Sunday ...
"Listen, 1905, Kansas City
voted out 250 saloons, 200 gambling houses and 60 houses of
prostitution. They worried if they voted out the saloon they would ruin
their economy but that wasn't the case. Next year bank deposits
increased $1,700,000. Court costs went down $25,000. And new starts,
building starts, new businesses, new homes went up 209%. Now before they
voted out the saloon they were getting ready to add a new addition to
the jail, but after the saloon's closed the jail doors swang idle on
their hinges and even the poor house began to empty. The next year was
1906 and 600 children between the ages of 12-18 entered school for the
first time in their life, because they didn't have to stay home and
support a drunken father." —Billy Sunday
I hope you will take these
words of wisdom to heart and avoid the evils of gambling. Billy Sunday
preached much against gambling, booze and dancing in his day. Today,
people laugh at Billy Sunday's message. Frank Sinatra mocked Billy Sunday
in his sinful song, Chicago; but Billy Sunday is now walking streets
of gold in Heaven, while Sinatra is tragically burning in Hell. Thank God
for great preachers like Billy Sunday and Jack Hyles!
The best throw with the dice
is to throw them away!
