Gambling and Religion. Beliefs or Choices?

[Casdinyard]

There are some religions that have strict views on gambling, some considering it morally wrong. However, people still gamble for various reasons.

Have you ever faced any conflicts between your religious beliefs versus gambling? How it happen and how did you handle it?
How do different religions view gambling? What could be the reasons behind it?

If your religious beliefs, which are strictly in-line with the way you get on with things in life, comes in clash with your hobbies and the way you want to live your life, I think you should choose which one would give you a better sleep at night. In countries like the Saudi Arabia where Islam is a massive deal for them, it might be more strategic to just stick to your beliefs and actually just quit your dreams of being able to gamble, lest you stir the wrath of your fellow islamic brothers and you actually get ousted of family dinners and all that stuff.

On the other hand, for more open countries like the US where Christianity is more prevalent, you guys know just how much Jesus hates gambling, but it's not like that would stop you from ever indulging in the finest things in life yeah? So I reckon a lot of you people will still go towards gambling, and just worry about the promised consequences after.

Whatever your belief system is or its disposition towards gambling however it's best to keep in mind that you need to have the discipline and the balls to not go overboard when you're gambling. Realize that gambling isn't something to be trifled with just cause you think you can get away with the consequences.

[Kelward]

There are some religions that have strict views on gambling, some considering it morally wrong. However, people still gamble for various reasons.

Have you ever faced any conflicts between your religious beliefs versus gambling? How it happen and how did you handle it?
How do different religions view gambling? What could be the reasons behind it?

I know that gambling is forbidden in Islam, I doubt that it's specifically written anywhere in the bible that christians should not gamble, although I've heard some overzealous preaches condemning gambling as a sin. I don't really know about the stance of other religions regarding gambling, so I think that it's mainly Islam that is very vocal about forbidden gambling.

I think that the way majority of people view gambling is based on their personal decisions, not religious believes, therefore it's their choices whether it's morally suitable for them or not. You will see people who don't belong to any religion condemn gambling, due to various reasons like gamblers are financially irresponsible, while others sees it as a normal game that people engage in, where you'll meet responsible and addicted gamblers. So gambling is more of a choice than believes.

[ethereumhunter]

Gambling can be taken as entertainment only when we are not afraid of losing any money by gambling. If we gamble we lose money then this gambling will not be our entertainment then this gambling will become a cause of loss for us at some point. So gambling like this is not right for anyone whether it is for entertainment or fun. Gambling for fun becomes an addiction once a person becomes fully addicted then if they gamble once and win money then they gamble twice the second time they gamble then luck will be good they can go home with the money and if luck  If it is bad, they lose all the money in the bet and return home destitute. A gambler cannot keep his family completely well because a gambler cannot provide happiness to his family comfortably when he is constantly losing money by gambling so everyone should refrain from such.

When people considers that gambling is just an entertainments and not uses it to makes money, they will not trying to breaks their limitations. They knows that they don't have to uses much money to playing gambling instead just use some money that they can affords to lose. Gambling is for fun and they will always avoids the addiction so they will not have to playing gambling too often or uses too much money because that can causes them to gets lose. But they knows that their religion will says that gambling is a bad thing and people must stay away. They will not trying to deny it but they will say that they are playing gambling with limitation and there's nothing to worries about because they can take care of themselves. They knows about the risks of playing gambling and what the impacts for their family if they breaks their limitation in gambling so that makes them be careful when playing gambling. But we can chooses what we belief and if our hearts say that gambling is bad for us, we don't have to playing gambling.

[TheUltraElite]

I have never seen someone who is truly religious playing gambling.

There are many religions out there which are small and shady as anything. One of them is well known from its "elders" indulgence in certain dehumanizing things. Hence a religious person may not always be a good person. Gambling though is known to bring bad outcomes to those who get addicted to it and thus religions abhor it. But there are many religious people who regularly gamble and lose money in it, without any remorse.

Hence we should not see the thing as A=B always. Whether to gamble or not is a person choice and we should not judge people based on that. If they are happy with it and their belief, let them be.

[Mahanton]

I have never seen someone who is truly religious playing gambling.

There are many religions out there which are small and shady as anything. One of them is well known from its "elders" indulgence in certain dehumanizing things. Hence a religious person may not always be a good person. Gambling though is known to bring bad outcomes to those who get addicted to it and thus religions abhor it. But there are many religious people who regularly gamble and lose money in it, without any remorse.

Hence we should not see the thing as A=B always. Whether to gamble or not is a person choice and we should not judge people based on that. If they are happy with it and their belief, let them be.

This might be old but this one shows up that even church leaders do really love to engage with gambling. lol.
Making up some indirect reasoning about that it is really just that for the church.

Priest wins $100,000 for church in poker game
A South Carolina priest missed the $1 million top prize in a poker tournament to be televised this weekend but he won $100,000 for his church.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna34526512

Some religions does prohibit gambling but those leaders are the ones who do really love to engage with it
on which it is really that totally contradictory.

[Su-asa]

There are some religions that have strict views on gambling, some considering it morally wrong. However, people still gamble for various reasons.

Have you ever faced any conflicts between your religious beliefs versus gambling? How it happen and how did you handle it?
How do different religions view gambling? What could be the reasons behind it?

I know that gambling is forbidden in Islam, I doubt that it's specifically written anywhere in the bible that christians should not gamble, although I've heard some overzealous preaches condemning gambling as a sin. I don't really know about the stance of other religions regarding gambling, so I think that it's mainly Islam that is very vocal about forbidden gambling.

I think that the way majority of people view gambling is based on their personal decisions, not religious believes, therefore it's their choices whether it's morally suitable for them or not. You will see people who don't belong to any religion condemn gambling, due to various reasons like gamblers are financially irresponsible, while others sees it as a normal game that people engage in, where you'll meet responsible and addicted gamblers. So gambling is more of a choice than believes.

However, many people are condemning gamble because it's a thing that is risky (100%), imagine when you are putting money on something and it's retuning it back in double fold, you won't condemn it because you are profiting. Most people condemns gamble because when they gamble they lose and they said it's not a thing for them. However I respect any one who gamble and quit because it's not easy for a gambler to quite when he already knows how to bet.

[Mate2237]

I have witnessed conflict between Church leaders and gambling and what happened. In my Church, an elder (Deacon) in the church bought Generator for the church pastor before so last too years, the Deacon wanted to open a bet shop and he asked the resident pastor to him him the church generator to use and he would bring it back every Saturday evening against on Sunday buy the pastor refused so the man went to the other pastor whom he bought the for and collected back the Generator and left the church. And when I asked the Pastor, he told me that as a Church, they don't support gambling and that was why he didn't give the man the generator.

So the man left the church. Normally ethics of church doesn't accept gambling and if anyone is gambling the church against such attitude.

[Forsyth Jones]

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I don't think so, everything in life is a gamble, if you prioritize one thing over another, you believe that that task will give you more return than another, betting your time and effort and perhaps money on it.

A person who chooses to do nothing, just proclastinate, is betting their time on this, as they believe that comfort is more interesting to them than leaving their comfort zone.

There is nothing that prohibits me from wanting to make some bets involving games, as long as it has common sense limits.

[Moreno233]

I have witnessed conflict between Church leaders and gambling and what happened. In my Church, an elder (Deacon) in the church bought Generator for the church pastor before so last too years, the Deacon wanted to open a bet shop and he asked the resident pastor to him him the church generator to use and he would bring it back every Saturday evening against on Sunday buy the pastor refused so the man went to the other pastor whom he bought the for and collected back the Generator and left the church. And when I asked the Pastor, he told me that as a Church, they don't support gambling and that was why he didn't give the man the generator.

So the man left the church. Normally ethics of church doesn't accept gambling and if anyone is gambling the church against such attitude.

The truth is that many religion see gambling as bad owing to the attitude of gambling addicts. I came from such a background where gambling is seen as something reserved for people who have no future; this was the childhood mindset instilled in us as children until we grew up to be able to make decisions by ourselves. I have come to understand that many things in life are all gambling because no one is sure of anything. If that be the case, why demonize another form of gambling when most of what we do are all gambling. From  buying shares to starting up a new business including investing in real estate, all are gambling because they are exposed to risk with no guarantee of profit. Casino just seem to be of higher risk and the higher the risk, the more the reward. In my opinion, gambling have no business with religion because while the later is seeking to be right with God and humanity, the former is simply a way to survive.

[Wakate]

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I don't think so, everything in life is a gamble, if you prioritize one thing over another, you believe that that task will give you more return than another, betting your time and effort and perhaps money on it.

A person who chooses to do nothing, just proclastinate, is betting their time on this, as they believe that comfort is more interesting to them than leaving their comfort zone.

There is nothing that prohibits me from wanting to make some bets involving games, as long as it has common sense limits.

Gambling is more of risk than even the result we are expecting to see as gamblers. We just need to be well prepared and take decisions that would influence our result so we don't do too much. There are gamblers that understand what they are doing and always working on themselves to be a better gamblers without much risk when they are gambling.
We need to respect religion in everything we are doing even though we are not religious ourselves. There are some religious beliefs that might look like the opportunity of what we belief and that should not make us think like everything is fallacy. Everything is all about timing and planning for the best.