Yesterday I wrote about watching our son Mark “Scale the Strat” in Las Vegas, becoming the US National Champion stair racer. Pretty exciting! We rounded out our visit with a trip to the mind-boggling Hoover Dam, two fantastic shows, and a nice dinner.

The only tough part was watching people gamble. As I walked through casinos many times in four days, I was reminded of something I read in National Geographic as a young boy. The caption under a picture of people playing slot machines in Monaco was:

Gamblers, win or lose, are seldom happy.

It remains true. I saw no smiles among the people sitting at the machines. We saw one lady crying. June and I wish we had had time to check on her.

A mathematician friend of mine, when he learned we were in Las Vegas, wrote:

Don’t gamble. It doesn’t pay in the long run.

He’s right. The house is going to take 5 – 10% of all money wagered. The rest of it is spread randomly around those gambling. Mathematically, your expected return on a $100 wager is $95.

Make no mistake: it’s Gambling, even though the industry likes to drop the “bl” and calling “Gaming,” and it’s not good for you no matter how much our culture likes to normalize it. 

A recent article on BreakPoint said that some research indicates that 50% of the money wagered comes from people with a gambling problem. But, not to worry because there is a National Gambling Problem Hot Line (funded by the gambling industry – what could go wrong?). Breakpoint, February 28, 2023

I wrote about sports betting at the beginning of the football season. At the time, Alabama was a lock to win the national championship, favored to win all their games by double-digits. Guess what? They lost two of those games and didn’t even make the final-four playoffs.

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1 Timothy 6.9, 10, ESV)

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13.5, ESV)