Who won the game last night? When do they play next? You open your computer to check the scores, and along the way, the ads are inescapable. You couldn’t avoid them if you tried. Sports betting has arrived in full force.
The advertisers are not wasting their money either. In February 2024, an estimated 68 million Americans were expected to wager over 23 billion dollars on the Super Bowl. This comes as no surprise since just under 120 billion dollars was bet on sports in 2023. That’s $360 per person in the United States. Sports betting has most likely arrived in your church, and it might have even set up shop in your own home. If it hasn’t yet, the bookies are certainly knocking on the door.
Sports betting has infiltrated the sporting ecosystem. How should Christians respond?
Stewardship Problem
Some respond by suggesting that gambling in any form — including sports betting — is reckless and fails to contribute anything meaningful to the real world. The money wagered also belongs ultimately to our God, so failure to manage it well amounts to embezzlement against him. Additionally, he gives each of us one life to live, and better investments abound for the money and the time used to engage with sports betting.
Sports betting has also become something of a Trojan horse for more nefarious forms of gambling as well as gambling addiction. Sports betting functions as a door into the wide hall of Internet gambling — particularly for young people who ordinarily would not set foot into a casino. Gambling companies, driven by their bottom line, see a return on investment of 500 percent when they convert a sports better into a casino gambler.
We shouldn’t be surprised that the desire for thrill and gain can escalate occasional game-specific sports betting into 24-hour-a-day forms of online gambling. After all, Paul warns Timothy, “Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:9–10).
‘Responsible’ Sports Betting?
The stewardship argument certainly carries weight, and sober-minded Christians should have a category for the slippery slope, especially in activities so closely related to greed.
But more and more, a common rationalization has come to the forefront: What about “responsible” sports betting? Sports betting is now legal in many places, so the social stigma has lessened. Do we not spend money on other hobbies and activities? So what could be wrong with betting on a limited budget, especially while remaining focused on enjoying the sports experience with friends? Is there no room for carefully enhancing and intensifying the sports-watching experience?
Beyond the stewardship problem and the risk of gambling addiction, however, several other aspects of sports betting point to a serious, sobering reality: Sports betting wagers more than just our resources. Due to how it shapes our view of risk, how it corrupts the nature of sports, and how it fails to love our neighbor, sports betting is unwise and even sinful.
1. Sports betting distorts our view of risk.
Sports betting distorts our view of risk and dulls our capacity for true and lasting joy. While betting companies pitch sports betting as a risk to enhance enjoyment, the practice ultimately encourages risk for immediate financial reward.
The book of Proverbs warns against betting slogans like, “The more you play, the more you’ll earn.” Proverbs 13:11 counsels, “Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little makes it grow.” Or consider Proverbs 28:20: “A faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished.” Sports betting conditions our hearts to love risk for the sake of immediate financial gain, and chasing such wealth leads to destruction.
We should not conclude, however, that we should never take risks. The farmer who “observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap,” declares the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 11:4. Rather than seeing dismal prospects and refusing to take God-honoring, entrepreneurial risk, the Preacher calls for humility and faithful labor before the “God who makes everything” (Ecclesiastes 11:5–6).
Two factors distinguish the faithful entrepreneur from the sports bettor. First, whereas the sports bettor aims to gather quick wealth, the faithful entrepreneur aims to create wealth. Christian business seeks to love neighbor by providing a good or service at a fair price. Sports betting fails to love anyone but self — and it even fails at that.
Second, the faithful entrepreneur embraces risk but also seeks to mitigate risk in the areas he can control. By doing so, he embraces risk with wisdom and faith, whereas sports betting increases risks for the sake of higher payouts. In other words, sports betting teaches us to embrace risk in the wrong ways.
Additionally, Christians take gospel risks for the sake of eternal joy. Jesus calls upon us to give up our life in order to gain it (Luke 9:24). Paul calls death in Christ gain for the one dying (Philippians 1:21). Acts 15:26 describes Paul and Barnabas as “men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Whereas sports betting conditions people to take risks for immediate hits of dopamine or rapid financial reward, Christians take risks with Christ and immortal souls in mind. So, we should avoid participating in activities that train us to think of risk deficiently.
2. Sports betting corrupts sport.
Not only does sports betting distort our view of risk, but it also corrupts God’s holy purposes for sport. The same God who created the sea monster to play in the depths of the ocean (Psalm 104:26) created humans to enjoy the world he has given to us (Ecclesiastes 3:12–13). Holy play today, as a momentary rest from the burdens of daily life, helps us look forward with hope to the new creation awaiting us tomorrow.
Though not utilitarian in essence, sports can also benefit humanity. In particular, competition can cultivate self-control and skill — though we should be wary of the envy that lurks at the door (Ecclesiastes 4:4). At its best, sports can bring out the best in competitors.
Sports betting, however, corrupts both imaginative play and athletic competition. By reducing the game to wins and losses — or worse, point spreads or in-game betting — the result of the game supersedes the game itself. Certainly, the bettor has more on the line related to the outcome, but he can no longer enjoy the game for the simple beauty of the play or the nuances of the competition.
Not only this, but more and more players in professional sports have been swept up by the sports-gambling flood. Fans of these sports have reason to be concerned when players have been found to bet on their own sports, bet on their own team, and bet on their own personal performance — sometimes even betting that they will not perform well and then checking out of the game with an “injury.”
Sports betting corrupts the nature of sports and the purpose of sports, and it also incentivizes players to participate in the corruption, making it unwise for Christians to participate in such a broken and detrimental system.
3. Sports betting lacks love for neighbor.
Let’s say you do very well in sports betting. You are one of the few who outsmart the system and make a decent amount of money doing so. The question then becomes “Who loses?” In reality, sports betting is not a zero-sum game; it is a negative-sum game. The house, by definition, must win. To do so, sportsbooks subtly stack the odds so that if bettors wager an even amount of money on both teams, the sportsbook will still make money.
Scripture establishes the command to “love your neighbor as yourself,” which Jesus affirms as one of the two — along with love for God — upon which all the Law and the Prophets depend (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:37–40). Paul calls upon Christians in Philippians 2:4, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
The bookies cannot lose money. Therefore, in order for you to win, your neighbor must lose. And as you take your neighbor’s money — possibly contributing to a destructive gambling addiction — you make a profit for the predatory sportsbook as well. Sports betting lacks love for neighbor.
This lack of love requires repentance, even if done unintentionally or ignorantly (Numbers 15:27–31).
Guard Your Heart
Proverbs issues a warning to all who would walk the path of wisdom:
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. . . . Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or the left; turn your foot away from evil. (Proverbs 4:23)
Sports betting calls us down a crooked path, one that will reshape our hearts away from life. It promises pleasures, but they are, at best, fleeting and fraught with unholy risk. That path swerves from the deep and enduring joys that come by following God’s designs in God’s ways.
So, yes, sports betting has arrived in full force. And how should we respond? It may feel like we cannot avoid sports betting — or at least the ads. But because sports betting distorts our view of risk, corrupts sports, and lacks love for neighbor, participating is unwise and even sinful. Do not risk your heart, and your neighbor, for quick financial gain.
Desiring God