Powerball and the Practice of Stewardship

In Isaiah 65, there is a reference to how the pursuit of riches can be detrimental to our lives. In the New American Standard version, we read:
11 "But you who forsake the LORD, Who forget My holy mountain,Who set a table for Fortune, And who fill cups with mixed wine for Destiny,
12 I will destine you for the sword, And all of you will bow down to the slaughter. Because I called, but you did not answer; I spoke, but you did not hear. And you did evil in My sight And chose that in which I did not delight."

As believers, we are not called to trust "Fortune," which I would describe as the unhealthy, unbiblical pursuit of material gain.  The New Living Translation uses the word, "Fate."  We don't have to live trusting in the false hope of chance, but we can place our trust in the certainty of God's faithfulness. We can have our confidence in the Lord, and walk in His stewardship principles.  As verse 12 points out, our refusal to exercise sound judgement and responsibility leaves us vulnerable to being drawn outside of God's will for our lives.

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The apostle Paul, in 1st Timothy chapter 6, points out that having an unhealthy attitude toward money is harmful to us spiritually:
9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

We have a winner!   3 of them, actually.   Yes, last week, it was announced that winners who bought tickets in Florida, Tennessee, and California had been selected in that latest Powerball lottery jackpot, the largest in history - at $1.5 billion dollars.   CNN Money reported on the family in Tennessee who stepped forward and went on the TODAY show before they even reported it to the state.

Another CNN Money story states that Powerball players spent an estimated $2.6 billion on tickets since the last jackpot was claimed in November. To win the grand prize, the ticket must match all five numbers (in any order) and the red Powerball number.

I believe that we are in the midst of a sluggish economy - there are reports of less-than-optimal revenues during the Christmas season and the woeful performance of the stock market in the past few weeks, and $2.6 billion has been taken out of the economy - not invested in goods and services and punishing people who really cannot afford it.

That's the insidious nature of the lottery, and really gambling in general.  People spend money on games of chance, with a false hope they will strike it rich.

The Atlantic, in an article entitled, "Lotteries: America's $70 Billion Shame," reported that Americans in the 43 states where lotteries are legal spent $70 billion on lotto games in 2014. That’s more than $230 for every man, woman, and child in those states—or $300 for each adult.

According to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, lotteries took in $70.1 billion in sales in the 2014 fiscal year. That’s more than Americans in all 50 states spent on sports tickets, books, video games, movie tickets, and recorded music sales.

The Atlantic piece goes on to say:

But it’s the poor who are really losing. The poorest third of households buy half of all lotto tickets, according to a Duke University study in the 1980s, in part because lotteries are advertised most aggressively in poorer neighborhoods. A North Carolina report from NC Policy Watch found that the people living in the poorest counties buy the most tickets. "Out of the 20 counties with poverty rates higher than 20 percent, 18 had lottery sales topping the statewide average of $200 per adult," the North Carolina Justice Center reported.

John Piper quotes some of the stats from the Atlantic article in a recent post.  He says there are seven reasons that you play the lottery or gamble your money in any way.  I want to walk through those briefly:

1. It is spiritually suicidal.

He quotes another version of those verses I stated from 1st Timothy chapter 6 about the love of money.

2. It is a kind of embezzlement.

Piper notes, "Managers don’t gamble with their Master’s money. All you have belongs to God. All of it. Faithful trustees may not gamble with a trust fund. They have no right..."

3. It’s a fool’s errand.

He says "The odds of winning are nearly 176 million-to-one."

4. The system is built on the necessity of most people losing.

Piper references the International Business Times, which says lotteries are “just another form of gambling (without any of the glamour and glitz of Las Vegas, of course). The ‘house’ controls the action, the players will all eventually lose.”

5. It preys on the poor.

Piper writes, 

The lottery supports and encourages “yet another corrosive addiction that preys upon the greed and hopeless dreams of those trapped in poverty. . . . The Consumerist suggested that poor people in the U.S. — those earning $13,000 or less — spend an astounding 9 percent of their income on lottery tickets. . . making this ‘harmless’ game a ‘deeply regressive tax’” (ibid).

6. There is a better alternative.

Piper notes, "If the $500 a year that on average all American households throw away on the lottery were invested in an index fund each year for 20 years, each family would have $24,000. Not maybe. Really. And the taxes on these earnings would not only support government services, but would be built on sound and sustainable habits of economic life."

7. For the sake of quick money, government is undermining the virtue without which it cannot survive.

And you have state lawmakers considering establishing a lottery and perhaps other forms of expanded gambling in Alabama to boost revenue for the state - are you kidding?  They need to be prayed for and contacted.  Otherwise, voters should say to those who support such a thing (to quote from a gambling and real estate magnate who is running for President), "You're fired." 

In summary, there are several main points:

For one thing, gambling is an example of poor stewardship.  If all we have belongs to God, why would we support taking His money and using it in such an irresponsible manner.   Even a non-believer is wasting his or her resources that could be used for other purposes.

Also, gambling is an example of taking advantage of poor people.  As believers we are called to help and minister to the poor - so if we support taking money out of their pockets, when people cannot afford it, we are not helping, we are supporting a methodology that does not follow a Scriptural model.

And, finally, as it's been pointed out here, gambling is poor public policy.  It does not place money into the economy and it has no guarantees to generate the kind of revenue it is counting on.