Are raffle draws considered gambling?

[suzanne5223]

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.

I did research on the definition of gambling. This is what I get "Gambling is the act of risking money or something of value on an event with an uncertain outcome, with the primary aim of winning more money or a prize."
Technically, we can consider raffle draws to be gambling. However, it depends on the level of reason behind the game and jurisdiction.

[Maslate]

Yes, raffle draws are clearly example of gambling. Anyone that pays or buys ticket and comes with a prize, while some gains nothing, this is what like gambling is. And the fact that bigger revenues go straight to the founder of this event, this is exactly gambling. The house still has the biggest edge, that's how gambling is being executed.

If we follow the rules and standards, religious house should not be involved in gambling, or else they will be sanctioned and their access to the people will be stop. Raffle draws are good as long as there's no price involved, they can still make money through some people's voluntary donations.

[aioc]

- Can raffle draws be considered a form of gambling?

It's every inch a gamble, you use money to get one ticket, and you are hoping to win, and there are prizes waiting for the lucky winner to receive exactly what you're getting in gambling.

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

Raffle draws for them are a sort of fund drive; they are aware it's gambling, but they prefer to dwell on the funds the raffle draws generate.

[freedomgo]

You have to pay money before you can be part of the people, just like lotttery. Anything that you pay money and expecting more money in return within a short period of time are gambling. Just to make this to be short, what you explained is just gambling. But it is fun, not often and no addiction and it is recreational and social.

Yeah, this is fun but believe me, those who only get to experience real fun are only those who received prizes, those who buy tickets and gain nothing, they might be feeling the other way around. Raffle draws still falls on gambling, its just that the chance of winning is high compared to what real gambling in casino is.

But this is not an excuse that a religious house still breaks their rules about not to be part in gambling, or initiate something that gambling is present. If they have done some other things that can raise money or funds, without chance or prize involved, it could have been more acceptable in the eyes of many.

[Stepstowealth]

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

It is possible that they speak against it , but also practice or use the method because they can regulate and control how their raffle draws will go. Some of the raffles conducted in religious house have free access and that is a way to just give things away, so it can have the name of gambling but it is far from gambling.

[Cryptohygenic]

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

It is just a game of fun to entertain the people.
It usually comes with a prize to make participate serious about it.
The event does not really require the same passion we possess in the outside world of gambling.
Perhaps the loosers do still feel the fun along and after the event the memory dies for good.

[Jody.Drummer]

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.

I did research on the definition of gambling. This is what I get "Gambling is the act of risking money or something of value on an event with an uncertain outcome, with the primary aim of winning more money or a prize."
Technically, we can consider raffle draws to be gambling. However, it depends on the level of reason behind the game and jurisdiction.

In my opinion, it also depends on the nature of the raffle. As long as the raffle doesn’t require an upfront fee or capital meaning it’s a purely random draw then it’s not gambling. But if the raffle involves an initial transaction, such as the use of capital, then it is gambling. And regarding the sentence you highlighted in bold, I agree with that. In my community, there are sometimes competitions sometimes with a registration fee, sometimes without and sometimes there are also door prizes for added entertainment. I’m quite confused as to whether this is considered gambling or not, but based on the statement above, if capital is indeed used at the outset, then it is gambling.

[alegotardo]

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?

It depends... what are the prize and what is the main purpose of the raffle??

In gambling, people place bets to win more money, right? In other words, the goal is make money, and this is the main prize and the primary motivation for most people who gamble.

However, what you said here is not entirely clear to me, but I believe that in the church youth convention that you mentioned, both the purpose and the prizes are different.

In my country, churches also organize raffles too, but the main intention of who participate is not become rich, but help raise funds for worthy causes supported by church. The prizes are not cash either... they are usually is electronic devices and some other items, many of which have been donated by companies.

In other words, it is not gambling. Even though luck is still the main factor involved in the event, the purposes is very different, and this is what distinguishes gambling from others raffles.

So, if the purpose is noble and intention is not to make someone rich, I do not see any problem with the church supporting it.

[tread93]

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, what you explained above is a clear gambling, what ever you engage yourself in that requires you risking any amount of money for a potential/possible reward if you win, or nothing if you lost, is considered as gambling regardless of the settings or place where the event is being organised or held.

A church known to preach against gambling should not have gotten into such type of event because they clearly promoted gambling, but maybe the priest realising this later may say "well, we are all humans and no one is holy and above mistakes no matter their level in the Christian faith".

But the church would have done instead is launch a freewill donation that should be used to buy the items for the reward, then make the ticket free to pick by all members of the church with no one allowed to pick more than one ticket, whoever won is lucky, and who didn't win will still go home happy because they didn't buy the ticket, and this would have still generated the same level of fun experienced in the event..but unfortunately, they church used their members to make more money, obviously practising something they preach against.

I think going so far as to equate a church event raffle as "practising something they preach against" is a bit too far lol every church does some sort of raffles and a lot of the time they are free but in this particular circumstance it sounds like much of the money went to the raffle and perhaps there was some leftover that would normally go into one of the many church funds such as a benevolent fund or general fund to fund the church itself of more fun activities of this nature. To answer OPs question yes this can be depicted as a form of gambling, but its a fun church event that good churches put on for its members simply because raffles are fun they make events better and people love to win prizes lol.

[Hispo]

...

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, lotteries and raffles are considered gambling, and those key points and definitions you mentioned pretty much summarize what gambling is.
The only noticable difference if how the prizes of the raffle do not consist in cash.

Whether it is right or not for a church or religious organization to organize raffles is pretty much up to the interpretation of the Bible/Koran of such religious organization.
Bible explicitly documents humanity is supposed to stay away from love of money and pursue of money is a sin.
By giving prizes in the form of rice, smart-phones and other things which are not necessarily money, they are (somewhat) bypassing the sin of pursue/love of money.

Other churches would still call it gambling and be against it, again... It depends much on the interpretation of the church or congregation.

[LastKiss]

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.

~snip~

Yes, it's gambling, anything that depends on luck is considered gambling. However, in this case I think raffles don't lead to the same level of addiction as other forms of gambling. I've never seen anyone become addicted to raffles before, although there's still a chance that someone could become addicted it's much less common than with slots or sports betting. So, in my opinion that's probably one of the reasons why religious still organize such events even though they could be considered a form of gambling.

[DubemIfedigbo001]

- Can raffle draws be considered a form of gambling?

Yes of course, it's gambling and from your description, anything that involves a stake which has the potential of winning a prize higher than it through a random selection process is gambling, although it can be argued that it's controlled and don't happen often, so many people may not be addicted through it, but for being a gambling vehicle, I agree it is.

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

Religious organizations brand good and bad by themselves in most settings, they still do what they condemn indirectly in some cases. I understand that this was in a bid to raise funds for church projects or so, but the religious leader should understand too that the casino raises funds for their profits as well. In a nutshell, it isn't right to have such events if the religious body condemns gambling

[bangjoe]

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.

snip

That's gambling obviously, it's just like the lottery and the lottery is a form of betting where you have to spend money to get into the nominations just like any other form of gambling.
 
It's a funny irony that the Pastor is against gambling and has always had a bad view of gambling but he allows such things to be held in his own home just as he supports gambling activities, it can be said that the words when preaching are nonsense if that is the case.

If you want to avoid gambling is that you don't pay anything to get the ticket which is purely as a form of prize, we will get a number and wait without having to pay anything, if we win then it is a prize, in practice this is the same in the drawing except that the participant does not pay anything to get the ticket.

[Powerjumboo]

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?

As far as I know, raffle draws are a form of gambling because tickets are bought with money and the outcome depends on luck. Since the outcome depends on luck and tickets are bought with money, it must be considered gambling. Although some religions oppose gambling, they still participate in gambling, but Islam does not accept gambling at all because Islam never supports gambling and has strict rules and regulations regarding gambling.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Yes its also a form of gambling since you are spending money to potentially win something by Luck and its the same with gambling or casino games since you opted to bet something.

Some might argue with it that its not but with the concept of it we can understand that its part of the gambling though less addictive and theres not much entertainment on it besides waiting for the number if you got luck to win it.

Sometimes we do slots and we can enjoy it and possibly win something from it or lose it too. Same goes for raffle anything needed bet
money is gambling.

[yhiaali3]

Yes, lottery draws can be considered a type of gambling without a doubt. If it is not gambling, then what can it be called? It fulfills all the conditions of gambling, so it can only be called gambling, even if some, especially in religious societies, try to call it by other names.

As for the second question, my opinion is that it is not permissible for a religious institution to prohibit gambling, but to permit lottery draws, because this is a falsification of religious facts and beliefs and an attempt to show them in a non-prohibited manner, while in reality they are religiously prohibited according to the Church’s doctrine.

[famososMuertos]

:://::

First, I think what we should ask is if the faithful would be willing to give what they spend on the raffle as a donation, or in this case, alms. That should be the right thing to do.

From a mathematical and even legal point of view, raffles are games of chance. Anything you bet on is intrinsic to the act itself. What raffles have is that they seem harmless, but they are as addictive as any kind of bet in a casino.

[ArabBTC]

I have also been in a religious gathering where we bought tickets to compete in different games. The funniest part of it is that the teachings of this organisation forbid gambling. Most people didn't see it as gambling. They saw it as a means of raising funds for projects. So I would have to assume that the mindset of participants will determine if an activity is gambling or not.

There are no assumptions in life, ignorance of a law doesn’t mean the penalties of breaking such laws won’t affect you, the fact that the church doesn’t consider raffle draws as gambling doesn’t change the fact that it is actually gambling in real sense, any thing that involves using money to get money in a way that requires predictions or selections in a particular pattern amongst two or more parties is gambling, ones mindset can’t change that fact, so to me if really the church is against gambling they should avoid it in all its forms, even if the purpose is to generate money for a project doesn’t change the fact that various persons are competing and that those that lose their money won’t be angry at the end. I stand to be corrected because am not so certain but i have read some religious books but i don’t think i came across where gambling was prohibited in the bible, so i don’t really know why the church is against it, to me if people can actually gamble responsibly it won’t be a problem because the world itself is just like one is gambling, nothing is certain, no one knows tomorrow.

[OgNasty]

I don’t know the legal intricacies of labeling one game gambling vs another. However, me personally, I would consider a raffle gambling. You are basically paying for entertainment with the chance of winning something. If that isn’t gambling then I don’t know what is.

[SPIDERMAN008]

You are analyzing the subject of raffle draws in a very good way. And I myself believe that raffle draws are a kind of gambling. There is no reason to doubt it. No Logic will not work against it. Because even with a little simple thinking, it can be understood that it is like gambling. I myself know of a case where a person spent almost his required money to buy many tickets to get the first prize. Even after buying tickets with so much money, he could not win anything. This caused a huge financial loss for him. The matter is exactly like a gambler who bets aggressively due to greed and bets with his required money and later causes losses.