Donald A. Purdy said:
The Christian and Gambling
by: Todd Clippard
America is becoming a nation of habitual gamblers. Conservative estimates place the legal gambling total at $40 billion annually. Probably every state in the union has legalized gambling in some form, whether it be casino gambling, horse and dog tracks, the lottery, bingo, raffles, or such like. Gambling is a sin. As such, no Christian should participate in it or encourage its legalization in any way...
Purdman ( Standing In The Need Of Prayer )
Some good points raised but I thought I'd contribute two or twenty cents here:
For one thing, the actual definition of 'gambling' is something I would dispute. By law, in order to have 'gambling' as of the kind that violates some laws, you must have three components 1) prize 2) chance and 3) consideration, where prize is the money or object of value you win, chance is the element of luck, and consideration is the money you invest. If any one of those elements is removed then the act is no longer GAMBLING (that's why it's not illegal to play in contests at McDonald's or Wendy's or whatever, because they're free - the element of consideration has been removed). When two people wager money on a game of pool, element #2, chance, has been removed, because pool is a game of skill. Thus we can no longer call it gambling. This is black letter law.
Interestingly both courts and theologians have ruled this way. Wagering money on a pool game (or golf, tennis, bowling, darts, whatever) is not a sin, because it is not, in actual fact, gambling, by the strictest definition of the word. Additionally, to follow the religious aspect, the actual sin is GREED, not gambling. Thus if you can gamble in a social manner, without greed, then it is no longer a sin. Several big-time poker players are serious Christians and, since they play poker for their living, have related that this is how they justify their profession on religious grounds. I tend to agree with them.
To cover the other issue and the relevance of gambling/wagering to improve one's skill, I can say this: Pool, and especially nine ball, is a fairly easy game. Running nine balls in numerical order is no great feat in and of itself. The thing that separates the great players from the not so great isn't the quality of shots that the great players make, but rather that they are able to make them when they matter most. Thus it is my opinion that without some relevant consideration on the part of the players involved, the most important pool skill of them all - the ability to perform under pressure - is removed, and so then is the true depth of the game.
A smilar comment was once made by a champion bridge player regarding the game of poker. He said in essence that he felt that poker was a far more complex card game than bridge but, "the true complexity of poker is often shadowed, because poker MUST be played for money or the game has no meaning whatsoever." I think the same is true of pool.
Furthermore, your points regarding legalized gambling may be true, but I would suggest that the perceived positives from the jurisdictions involved must outweigh the negatives or they wouldn't have passed the laws. I would also say that legalized 'gambling' relates to games of chance, as in craps, blackjack or slot machines, and that playing pool, both by law and by definition, does not and should not fall into that category.
Everyone thinks that playing pool for money is some sort of degenerate behavior. I think it's a bum rap - just because there are some degenerates out there who happen to play for money doesn't mean that we all fall into that category.
"...cloth that was itself, the color of money." --Walter Tevis
