After moving to Las Vegas, I had to decide how I would handle the gambling issue. Should I preach against gambling? Several members of the church where I preach work in some capacity for the gaming industry, so should I also preach against working at casinos? Most of the Christians I work with never gamble, but occasionally, I will hear about some church members who enjoy playing the slot machines, and I am aware of a few who enjoy playing blackjack and poker. So, is gambling a sin like adultery or drunkenness?

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Gambling is a behavior, and before a behavior can be labeled as a sin, it is important to define the behavior one has in mind. For a definition of gambling, I will follow the one given by Ladouceur and Doucet (1998), which is similar to most of the other definitions by people who study this behavior. Gambling consists of three criteria: 1) players gamble money or an object of value; 2) the bet is irreversible once it is placed; and 3) the outcome of the wager relies on chance (5). Some games, like poker and blackjack, require skill in addition to chance. Some slot machine games, like video poker, give the illusion of a required skill by giving the player a chance to provide input.

Slot-machine addiction linked to immersion in the game Date: February 21, 2017 Source: University of British Columbia Summary: Gamblers who feel like they enter into a trance while playing slot.

Since I profess to be a Bible preacher, I strongly believe it is important to give a Bible answer to every issue, just as the Bible says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). The subject of gambling, however, is not addressed in the Bible and games that involve the above three criteria are nowhere labeled as sin. So, I will be happy to preach against gambling when I find it condemned in Scripture.

Realizing that many preachers like to preach against this behavior, I decided to do an internet search of some popular sermon websites to see if perhaps I have missed something in my search of the Scriptures. What I found was that many preachers would begin their sermon by admitting that the Bible says nothing about this subject and then proceed to present an entire lesson based on opinion rather than biblical teaching.

One preacher suggested that although the Bible does not address this subject, we are supposed to discern the teaching by looking at passages that have nothing to do with the behavior, which seems to me to be a dangerous way to apply Scripture. However, out of deference to these preachers, and out of concern for those who listen to them, I will discuss some of the arguments made by those who preach against gambling.

1. Gambling is stealing by consent.

I am not really sure about the point being made here since, by definition, stealing is without consent. Taking something of value from someone with their consent is receiving a gift. Winning a prize is where people engage in a behavior with mutual consent where the outcome is based on chance. The stealing argument seems to refer to the supposed wrongness of someone willingly placing a wager. Preachers who make this point usually give an analogy to other sins that we willfully do, such as adultery, but adultery is clearly prohibited in Scripture while gambling is not. The analogy, therefore, is comparing apples to oranges. Yes, adultery is by consent, and if it were not, the behavior could not be defined as adultery.

2. Gambling is contrary to good stewardship.

It is true that we are to be good stewards of material things (Luke 16:11), but this applies to how we use our financial resources in general and not to any specific behavior. I could argue that buying a diamond ring is a waste of financial resources, but most people believe they have the right to set aside money for such a purpose, especially if they want to get married, or to please a spouse on an anniversary occasion. I also believe that buying a bass boat is a poor use of financial resources, but there are many Christians in Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee, and elsewhere who believe they have the right to take a portion of their income and waste it on such a thing. I would never make a purchase like this because I do not enjoy the hobby, but it is going too far for me to label this behavior as sin just because I do not enjoy it.

I do not enjoy playing slot machines or poker, but some people do, and they set aside a certain amount to spend on this hobby every year. It is a matter of judgment as to how much money spent on such a hobby becomes a poor use of one’s financial resources. It is likely that a vacation trip to Hawaii costs more than a gambling trip to Las Vegas, but it is binding where God has not bound to say that one is a sin and the other is not.

3. Gambling contradicts the work ethic.

Work is honorable and good for all Christians (Ephesians 4:28). Work is not a curse because of sin but a blessing from God. Before Adam and Eve sinned, they were told to work in the garden (Genesis 2:15). Not working is contrary to God’s plan, and Paul gave this rule to the church: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

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It is the opinion of some preachers, however, that gamblers are lazy and do not want to work for a living, but this is assigning a motive to those who gamble that most do not have. Perhaps the preacher knows more gamblers than I do, but the people I know who enjoy gambling are not lazy. The people I know who gamble do so because they enjoy playing games of chance and they do not mind wagering money on those games.

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4. Gamblers are greedy.

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This may be true with some gamblers, but it is also true with people who never gamble. Some people work two jobs because they are greedy, but work is honorable. Some people save their money and invest because they are greedy, but saving and investing are not sins. The Bible says “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10), and some who gamble do commit evil because of their love for money, but it is wrong to assign evil motives to everyone because of what some do.

5. Gambling violates the Golden Rule.

Jesus said, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). The idea of doing unto others what you would have them do to you is called the Golden Rule. Since gamblers seek to win money from the casinos, they are supposedly violating this rule.

I am sure that casino executives here in Las Vegas are delighted to know that some preachers are taking an interest in their welfare, but in reply, they would say not to worry because they are doing just fine. Some of the most beautiful buildings in the world are owned by casinos in Las Vegas, and some of the casino buildings cost over a billion dollars! They did not build these palaces because you win but because you lose. The odds are always in favor of the casinos.

6. Gambling demonstrates a lack of self-control.

Paul said, “I will not be mastered by anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12). Certainly, this can include gambling behavior, but it can also include other behaviors, like eating, shopping, working, playing, sleeping, and so forth. People who are addicted to gambling are out of control, but people who are addicted to eating and shopping are also out of control. Gambling and casinos do not cause addiction—people cause addiction. Losing control is a choice one can make, but it does not necessarily mean that the behavior itself is wrong.

J B Myers

Books:

Unfortunately Sigma was the innovator of coin-less slots, and this showed up in the trail end Sigma uv1700 slot machines (TITO with ticket printer and no hopper). Generally speaking, most new slots after 2003 are TITO and don't handle coins, only paper money and tickets. Sigma Derby is an electro-mechanical horse race used for gambling manufactured by Japanese manufacturer Sigma Game Inc. And introduced in 1985. Up to ten players can buy in with quarters and place bets on the five horses; a quinella of two horses in any order pays out according to the odds. The house has roughly a 10-20% advantage, depending on the machine. Sigma derby slot machine.

I spent part of last week on vacation from science in Las Vegas, where I thankfully avoided financial ruin due to some fortunate combination of genes, math awareness and a wife that has no interest in gambling. Sure, I dabbled a bit in games of chance, but as soon as I got a little bit ahead on the blackjack tables I ran for my life, knowing that the probability would even out hard in the long run. For those concerned about the financial well-being of Sin City, they still managed to turn a profit on us, thanks to the low-return temptations of fine dining and French circus acts set to Beatles megamixes. But most of our time was spent on the free entertainment of people-watching and stuff-watching, observing row after row of people almost hypnotically at work on loud, noisy slot machines amid fake New York, Paris and Venice scenery.

It doesn’t take a PhD in neurobiology to conclude that slot machines are designed to lure people into a money-draining repetition, just as it doesn’t take expertise in the casino business to realize slots are absurdly profitable – there’s a reason why they outnumber table games 100-to-1. But I wanted to go back to the scientific literature to confirm a faint glimmer of information I retained from graduate school, specifically that slot machines are masterful manipulators of our brain’s natural reward system. Every feature – the incessant noise, the flashing lights, the position of the rolls and the sound of the coins hitting the dish – is designed to hijack the parts of our brain designed for the pursuit of food and sex and turn it into a river of quarters. Or so I remember.

Fortunately, there is a robust amount of research into why slot machines are so addictive, despite paying out only about 75% of what people put in. They are, some scientists have concluded, the most addictive of all the ways humans have designed to gamble, because pathological gambling appears faster in slots players and more money is spent on the machines than other forms of gambling. In Spain, where gambling is legal and slot machines can be found in most bars, more than 20.3 billion dollars was spent on slots in 2008 – 44% of the total money spent by Spaniards on gambling last year.

That data was published earlier this month by a psychologist from the Universidad de Valencia named Mariano Choliz in the Journal of Gambling Studies. Yes, such a publication exists! In the background of the paper, Choliz outlines the tricks that slot machines use to keep people feeding them:

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• Operating on a random payout schedule, but appearing to be a variable payout; i.e. fooling the player into thinking that the more money they play, the more likely they are to win.
• “The illusion of control” in pressing buttons or pulling a lever to produce the outcome.
• The “near-miss” factor (more on this below)
• Increased arousal (where the sounds and flashing lights come in)
• Able to be played with very little money; the allure of “penny” slots.
• And perhaps most importantly, immediate gratification.

This last point is the subject of Choliz’s experiment, which puts a group of ten pathological gamblers in front of two different slot machines. One machine produces a result (win or lose) 2 seconds after the coin was virtually dropped (it was computer program), the other delayed the result until 10 seconds after the gambler hit play. In support of the immediate gratification theory, gamblers played almost twice as long on the 2-second machines than they did on the 10-second machines…even though the 10-second machines paid out more money on average!

Choliz concluded that the immediacy of the reward was part of what kept people at slot machines, making them so addictive. The quick turnaround between action and reward also allows people to get into a repetitious, uninterrupted behavior, which Choliz compares to the “Skinner boxes” of operant conditioning – the specialized cages where rats hit a lever for food or some other reward. It seems like a cruel comparison, but after my three days walking through the casinos, not an inaccurate one.

Another trick up the slot machine’s sleeve was profiled earlier this year by a group of scientists from the University of Cambridge. In the journal Neuron, Luke Clark and colleagues examined the “near-miss” effect, the observation that barely missing a big payout (i.e. https://jpnin1.netlify.app/cashman-live-slot-machine.html. two cherries on the payline while the third cherry is just off) is a powerful stimulator of gambling behavior.

The Cambridge researchers put their subjects in an fMRI machine to take images of their brains while they played a two-roll slot machine game. When the players hit a match and won money, the reward systems of the brain predictably got excited – the activation of areas classically associated to respond to food or sex I mentioned earlier. When players got a “near-miss,” they reported it as a negative experience, but also reported an increased desire to play! That feeling matched up with activation of two brain areas commonly associated with drug addiction: the ventral striatum and the insula (smokers who suffer insular damage suddenly lose the desire to smoke).

Clark and co. conclude that near-misses produce an “illusion of control” in gamblers, exploiting the credo of “practice makes perfect.” If you were learning a normal task such as hitting a baseball, a “near-miss” foul ball would suggest that you’re getting closer – it’s better than a complete whiff, after all. But for a slot machine, where pulling the lever has no impact on the rolls other than to start them moving and start the internal computer calculating, a “near-miss” is as meaningless as any miss.

Nevertheless, it’s this type of “cognitive distortion,” as Clark and colleagues name it, that makes slot machines such effective manipulators of our brains. Those massive, gaudy casino-hotels that I wore out a pair of shoes strolling through last week weren’t just built on a crafty use of probability, they were built on a exploitation of brain functions we are only just beginning to understand.