Introduction. A number of years ago there was a tremendous focus on the lottery system known as the “Powerball.” The reason for the focus of national attention was the fact that the jackpot had soared to nearly 300 million dollars. Texas doesn’t have the “Powerball” but the Texas Lottery this week offers through one type of game a jackpot of $12 million.
Many of us remember a time in this country when such things were not a part of the American culture as they are now. The late Illinois Senator Paul Simon, in 1995 presented into the congressional record some powerful information on the history and effects of gambling in America. According to Simon:
I. Should A Christian Participate in the Lottery?
My mother belongs to a church in Collinsville, IL, that had a fine substitute teacher at its Lutheran school. Unknown to the teacher's family, she had been visiting a gambling boat. Money the family thought had gone to pay the rent and family bills had, instead, gone into wagers. One day, she left a message for her family, drove her car to a shopping center and killed herself.There is a pie chart on the website for the Texas Lottery which is entitled “Where the Money Goes.” It tries to show that (supposedly) 27% goes to education and 61% goes towards prizes. The better question that is not pictured on any graph is “Where Die the Money Come From?” The fact is that every dollar ever paid out in every jackpot came from some one else’s income! From someone’s family! From someone else’s livelihood! From someone else’s loss!
In a relatively affluent Chicago suburb, a 41-year-old man committed suicide after using more than $11,000 in credit card advances for gambling. He shot himself after leaving a gambling boat. Police found $13 in his pocket.
More typical is the experience of a friend, a professional man, who attended a statewide meeting of an association with which he is affiliated. While he went to the meetings, his wife went to a riverboat casino and `got hooked.' She spent all the money she had and used all the available money from her credit cards, close to $20,000. Her husband knew nothing about it until he checked out of the hotel and found his credit cards could not be used because they had already reached their maximum. In this family, the situation has worked out, but that is not true for many.
II. Why Put So Much Hope in A Remote Possibility? On the Texas Lottery website there is another chart which shows the odds of winning a prize like that $12 million dollars. It’s a little harder to find, but if youdig for it you’ll see the odds of winning are 1:25,827,165! Those are pretty poor odds! Why not devote that effort to better probability? [Note: I don’t say probability because I have any doubt in the things I am about to offer, but rather simply out of the recognition that matters of faith, although built upon evidence and reason cannot be absolutely proven in this life, in spite of their probability.] That being the case, if you insist on gambling on anything, why not gamble on the hope that...
Conclusion. I can’t prove that these things are true and will happen, but I would suggest that the odds, the evidence and reason itself suggest that it is much more reasonable to rest our hope on things such as this than on something as doubtful as the lottery!