Are raffle draws considered gambling?

[panjul07]

If we are risking money in order to win money in the raffle, yes it can be considered as gambling, as simple as that.
On the connection to raffle held by a church, I have no idea how the church see it but if the main idea is for raising funds while the raffle itself is not the main activity, I think it is fine.
But if the main activity is the raffle itself where the church is the one who provide the prizes and the church is making money from this, I have no words what to say.

[KTChampions]

~
NB: I knew about the RTP since I was among the organizers of the event.

here are the questions
- Can raffle draws be considered a form of gambling?
- Is it right that a Religious house speaks against gambling, but allows raffle draws?

By all definitions, a lottery is a game of chance (gambling), since it is a game for money (or prizes whose value has some equivalent in money) and the outcome depends on randomness and not on the skill of the participant. Interpretations may vary in different countries, but from a common-sense perspective, it's gambling. Another issue is that, due to tradition, raffle draws usually have a special status, as seen in your example. And I can’t say what the correct attitude is in this case - it’s a matter of tradition, people decide it themselves.

[Ruttoshi]

That's gambling in disguise unknown to the people that they're gambling. I call it package gambling because the organizers wouldn't call it gamble rather, they will say it's try your luck and you have to buy the ticket to qualify you to partake in that raffle draw.

It's the same thing as staking on ten leg parlay and you want to hit it big because some persons will be aiming at the highest reward. It's a game of luck and not by how many tickets that you bought.

[hedgeh0g]

If we are risking money in order to win money in the raffle, yes it can be considered as gambling, as simple as that.
On the connection to raffle held by a church, I have no idea how the church see it but if the main idea is for raising funds while the raffle itself is not the main activity, I think it is fine.
But if the main activity is the raffle itself where the church is the one who provide the prizes and the church is making money from this, I have no words what to say.

In my opinion, a lottery is considered gambling because it involves players making contributions to pool their winnings for the luckiest player. The organizer often takes a commission and pockets it, thus profiting. The thing is, it's difficult to devise a winning strategy in lotteries, unlike poker, because the lottery is very simple and relies solely on luck, which is the primary characteristic of gambling in my opinion. Of course, I could be wrong, and honestly, I don't want to play lotteries because they're incredibly boring.

[Findingnemo]

Just because it is happening in church and organized by holy father doesn't change the facts, it looks like Bingo as per your description so yeah, this comes under gambling.

When the results are based on game of chance/luck/randomness and you spend money or something else to become a part of it then it is nothing but a gambling.

[coinrifft]

Yesterday I was at a youth convention in a church setting and part of the program events was the raffle draw, I watched as people who bought varying quantities of tickets were seated waiting for the outcome of random picks by selected people from a pool of tickets which decides the winners of certain categories of rewards. The pool was always reshuffled before each pick and the persons that does the pick looks away before picking to ensure fairness.

Isn't it ironic though, the same foundation that is against gambling will have this kind of raffles and obviously it's a form of gambling no matter what angle you look at and what is reason behind that raffle.

And not just in your country, but also here in the Philippines, this is a well known practice of church leader. Hiding in the form or raffle, but it you look closely, this so called fund raising is the basic tenant of gambling as it involves money and you will have to win the price in exchange.

[Hatchy]

- Can raffle draws be considered a form of gambling?
- Is it right that a Religious house speaks against gambling, but allows raffle draws?

It's simply what happened here. People lack knowledge of what they know nothing about. I can assure you that if you bring this perspective to your priest, he would realise his mistake and ask for forgiveness from God and the church. It was done for fun, but the process makes it gambling. I think people feel that gambling is something you play online  or in a casino. They don't even know that sometimes even the little bets we make with out friends or families are gambling. If we focus too much on these religious concerns on gambling, we might discover that even the holiest of them must have broken his rules and gambled at one point in time. People just have to over look certain things and focus on what they like instead of pointing fingers to others..

[shawonngp]

Raffle draw seems like gambling to me, we call it lottery, we have to spend money to buy tickets, we participate in raffle draw hoping to win several times by spending small amount of money, winner is selected randomly, there are thousands of participants but just randomly winner is picked, some participants are given rewards as 1st and 2nd and third prize like that, The way is something different but I consider raffle draw as gambling. But I think most people participate in a raffle draw just for entertainment; I never spend a large amount on tickets. Just bought some tickets and test my luck.

[Mhizlove]

To participate in a raffle draw one must spend an amount of money or do some tasks and also winning is also based on luck, this is what makes it more about gambling. If you have to pay money to be part of those that qualifies for it then you are automatically gambling. The answer is yes, it's gambling.

I will say that the important thing to look at here is either people do risk something valuable for a chance to win a prize. Because if the outcome depends only on luck rather than skill, it really shares alot of similarities with gambling. That is why it's advisable for people to have understanding about the rules before taking part in any raffle,so that  they will know the exact thing they're putting risk on.

[robelneo]

here are the questions
- Can raffle draws be considered a form of gambling?

Not really hard to decide because there is money involved, there is drawing, and there is expectation; money, drawing, and expectation can also be found in a lottery, which is a form of gambling, so raffle draws are gambling.

- Is it right that a Religious house speaks against gambling, but allows raffle draws?

That looks like hypocrisy, but churches do it for fun and as a kind of fundraising for the poor and needy, and this is how they justify it.

[Mia Chloe]

~snip

Honestly you don't need too much details to tell if an activity is gambling or not. In lottery you are buying tickets which basically is literally similar to staking some money and all these based on being optimistic that your ticket is actually gonna be the winning ticket. The whole idea is obviously gambling.

Considering the odds also most people often say that lotteries are scams because the actual chances of you winning is always very low even if it's possible so you are depending totally on luck.

[skarais]

here are the questions
- Can raffle draws be considered a form of gambling?
- Is it right that a Religious house speaks against gambling, but allows raffle draws?

Lucky draw is also called lottery, it is one of the gambling games that are quite popular until now. The element of gambling is when you deliberately spend money on tickets, the more tickets you have, the more likely you are to win and in my opinion this is gambling. This concept is exactly the same as lottre games in general, only this is simplified ticket-shaped.

To answer your second question, I think we need to understand the laws based on religion. In islam, all forms of gambling are prohibited and this is obvious. No religious figure allows any form of gambling if it is prohibited in law, unless the figure has gone astray. Whoever does it means that it is his own will, they are ready to take responsibility with him.

[Crypto Library]

- Can raffle draws be considered a form of gambling?
- Is it right that a Religious house speaks against gambling, but allows raffle draws?

In my opinion, raffle draws definitely fall under gambling because here we have to rely on our luck at the same time, it's like trying to win the jackpot directly. And at the same time, it will not be possible to win the raffle draw in any way except by exploiting it here. And since there are no tricks or techniques involved here, it definitely depends only on the condition of the bikers while riding.

I don't know about other religions, but in my religion, just like gambling is definitely banned, raffle draws are banned. And there's nothing extra to say here, where the wise people of my religion can give answers.

[Sonia_123]

Yesterday I was at a youth convention in a church setting and part of the program events was the raffle draw, I watched as people who bought varying quantities of tickets were seated waiting for the outcome of random picks by selected people from a pool of tickets which decides the winners of certain categories of rewards. The pool was always reshuffled before each pick and the persons that does the pick looks away before picking to ensure fairness.

Personally, I bought 4 of such tickets and won nothing but I watched another girl who bought only 1 ticket win both a smart phone and a 25kg bag of rice and this got me wondering if we were actually gambling.

Now reconnecting it to gambling,

• A lot of people bought these tickets with varying amounts of money which can be considered the staking power
• Lots of rewards were available of which most of them were X100 - X1000 of the worth of money used by people for ticket purchases
• The tickets sales generated a lot of money of which the prize rewards were only about 30% of the total sales which can be considered 30% RTP
• Tickets were bought for the possibility of winning various rewards and it was tied to a random outcome
• More ticket buys doesn't not guarantee winning, just like throwing more money into the casino doesn't validate your winning anything

Funny enough my priest who always condemns gambling was there enjoying the raffle draw session.

NB: I knew about the RTP since I was among the organizers of the event.

here are the questions
- Can raffle draws be considered a form of gambling?
- Is it right that a Religious house speaks against gambling, but allows raffle draws?

Yes it is total gambling , most religious settings don't find it easy and want to accept that this aspect of life that they so enjoy often during their religious activities is gambling yet they preach against it, gambling has different ways of involving in every individual life, it must not necessarily being at the casino but in our daily lives as we live, even within two to three persons gambling takes place, so those that feels that gambling is for irresponsible people are also involved one way or the other.

[Bright0515]

Just like a stake you need to be able to participate in it by using an amount of money and you need to get lucky to be able to win which is still gambling. Raffle draw and gambling are the same thing, you cannot really say that they are different from each other. There are people that see raffle draws as something that's separate from gambling but this isn't actually right. If religious condemns gambling and supports raffle draws then you should know that they are just fake.

[r_victory]

It makes sense, considering that you are buying tickets and competing based on luck, since winning depends on being drawn. In fact, it has all the characteristics of a wager, such as buying a lottery ticket, for example.

[Alphakilo]

- Can raffle draws be considered a form of gambling?
- Is it right that a Religious house speaks against gambling, but allows raffle draws?

In my opinion, raffle draws definitely fall under gambling because here we have to rely on our luck at the same time, it's like trying to win the jackpot directly. And at the same time, it will not be possible to win the raffle draw in any way except by exploiting it here. And since there are no tricks or techniques involved here, it definitely depends only on the condition of the bikers while riding.

I don't know about other religions, but in my religion, just like gambling is definitely banned, raffle draws are banned. And there's nothing extra to say here, where the wise people of my religion can give answers.

I also concur that raffle draws are also a form of gambling because they share same ideology of which is the stake, the chance which is a function of its working mechanics and the reward or prize or win at the end.


Besides this, what the story underlines happen to not fall short of the motive. While the sportsbook or gambling business is purely in for the money and what their balance sheet says, the raffle draw in the church is perhaps for a good cause like charity or some project that is aimed to help individuals increase in faith, share the gospel and achieve individual pursuit of heaven, instead of to extort or grow church accounts.

[alastantiger]

Raffle draw seems like gambling to me, we call it lottery, we have to spend money to buy tickets, we participate in raffle draw hoping to win several times by spending small amount of money, winner is selected randomly, there are thousands of participants but just randomly winner is picked, some participants are given rewards as 1st and 2nd and third prize like that, The way is something different but I consider raffle draw as gambling. But I think most people participate in a raffle draw just for entertainment; I never spend a large amount on tickets. Just bought some tickets and test my luck.

Raffle draws and lottery tickets are just the same thing but they can be done in different ways but everything is just gambling. There are a lot of things that are gambling but they use different name to hide the fact that what you are doing is actually gambling and nothing else. Gambling happens when there is nothing you can do to affect the outcome of the results you get but all you do is to depend on luck and that is exactly what happens when you play or participate in raffle games. Only few people get lucky in this type of games and a lot of people lose even though the games were free but still the feeling you get is worse because you would have hoped that you won but then it does not happen and a lot of this games are staged hence it is frustrating.

[Exitoral]

If we're to really look at gambling normally from the perspective of everything, you'll see that almost anything is gambling. Overall, when you are not sure of an outcome it can be classified as gambling.

But to pin point gambling properly I can say gambling is anything that makes you risk something to get another thing and promises huge return or shows it to you without any or little effort to acquire it. Raffle draw fit into this category.

[mirakal]

If prize, chance, and consideration(paying to join the raffle) are all present, then its clearly an indication of gambling. People are taking the risk to buy raffle tickets with their hard-earned money, and they are playing with the unknown, so obviously this points out to gambling.

Any religious house should avoid talking about gambling, but if this raffle is for a good cause like helping one of your church colleagues or improving the church itself, then it could not be link to direct gambling.

Personally, having raffle draws is more acceptable for me as long as tickets are sold cheap, instead of asking donations and you don't know where the funds exactly go.