Sports gambling became legal in North Carolina in March of 2024, and during the first year of sports betting, North Carolinians wagered more than $6 billion. It is clearly a popular activity, and many even claim that it is harmless. But how should Christians approach sports gambling?
This week on Family Policy Matters, host Traci DeVette Griggs welcomes Dr. RaShan Frost, Director of Research and Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, to discuss how to approach sports gambling from a Biblical perspective.
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Family Policy Matters
How Christians Should Look at Sports Gambling (with Dr. RaShan Frost)
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. North Carolina is in its first year of legalized sports gambling, after the North Carolina legislature, after many failed attempts, legalized the practice in 2023 with bets starting in March of 2024. It was a move celebrated by former Governor Roy Cooper and the Carolina Hurricanes administration, among others, of course. And why shouldn’t gambling advocates be happy? North Carolinians lost more than $330 million in the first seven months of legalized sports gambling. Beyond the practical reasons to oppose it, such as statistics that show how legalized gambling leads to increases in gambling addicts, how should Christians think about gambling in general, and sports gambling in particular? Well, today we have Dr RaShan Frost, who is the Director of Research and Senior Fellow with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He is here with us today to talk about this and a new white paper that he helped author called “Don’t Bet On It: A Biblical and Theological Foundation Opposing Sports Gambling.” Dr. RaShan Frost, welcome to Family Policy Matters.
RASHAN FROST: Thank you for having me.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: All right. Well, this paper that you helped author argues that all forms of gambling contradict several Biblical principles, so tell us what those are.
RASHAN FROST: First of all, just to help kind of frame the discussion, it’s helpful to find gambling, and so it’s generally defined as the risking of money or other objects of value in order to gain further reward based on uncertain outcomes or games or bets. And that’s important, because based on that definition, gambling contradicts several Biblical principles, based on the Great Commandment. I love to start at the Great Commandment with Love the Lord your God, with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. And so, these commands are what God requires of us, but they’re also virtues. That virtue of love of neighbor and love of God, starting off with the love of God, that he wants to cultivate within us so that we could be the people that He desires for us to be. And so gambling, at its core, is rooted in two larger sins or principles, the first one being idolatry, failing to love God properly, because it is the love of money taking priority over the love of God, and we’re cautioned in Scripture against covetousness and greed, because it takes our heart effects away from God, but also it leads to injustice, and this idea of failing to love your neighbor as yourself, because it not only harms our behaviors and character, but it also has downstream effects that are devastating to others as well as ourselves. And so I like to say that gambling exposes our deepest loves and affections. Like do we love God and seek to serve Him with all of us, all of our time and our talents, in our resources, or do we seek money for our glory and to serve money? And also, do we love our neighbor in such a way that we don’t engage in practices that can ultimately harm others? And so how we answer those questions there will have downstream effects that go beyond just us as individuals.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Right. So, talk about, how can gambling harm others? Because I’ve heard people say, Well, just investing in the stock market is a gamble, but how is gambling, especially sports gambling, something that could be harmful in a way that maybe investing is not?
RASHAN FROST: That’s a great question, and I think it’s important to say, first of all, that gambling as we know it to be, even as we define it today in our conversation, and investing, are not the same. Because when you look at investing, for example, there are long term trends and trajectories. You’re investing is not a short-term immediate gain, it is a long-term longitudinal gain, if you will. Even if there’s risk, there’s still an upward trajectory that is different than gambling. And so, I think it’s important to provide that caveat. Also, when we think about the downstream effects of gambling, we see increased rates of aggression and inter partner violence. So, let’s take sports betting, for example. Research will actually show that there’s 11% increase in inter partner domestic violence. So, we just had the Super Bowl, and March Madness is coming up, and it’s a terrible thing to think, but the facts drive out that the Super Bowl, and the betting that was associated to that, inevitably leads to an increase in domestic violence. So that’s one large way. It harms marriages as, and I’m thinking pastorally, we understand the role of finances plays in marriage, and if you’re hiding money, if you’re not engaged with your resources in a healthy way that it benefits the entire family, gambling is devastating to that. It also leads to increased rates of debt collections and bankruptcies and so when we take the downstream effects of gambling as we look at how it impacts families and individuals, there’s no redemptive value in gambling.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Talk about this then, because I just watched a little video clip of our governor celebrating the fact that we now had legal gambling in North Carolina. And he said, Well, it’s always been here, so now we get to regulate it. We get to benefit from the money that is coming in. But talk about harm as it relates to just the state putting this stamp of approval on this behavior.
RASHAN FROST: That’s another great question, I think it’s important to understand. Yes, the state benefits. Why? Because it’s a money maker. When the state sees as an opportunity to regulate, they’re saying, How can we get a piece of the pie? So, if the gambling industry gets a large slice of this pie, the state’s like, Well, why can’t we? The problem, though, is that it contradicts the role of government. And here’s what I mean. What is the role in government in this larger picture? Well, the government, the state, if you will, has two primary responsibilities, one to promote flourishing and two, to punish or restrain evil, to regulate vice, if you will. And I know that’s, there’s a lot of hairs to splice with that, but that’s the larger overarching theme, promote flourishing and to restrain evil. And so, the state has a duty to protect citizens from predatory practices of the sports gambling industry, which intentionally target vulnerable populations and foster destructive consequences like addiction, familial violence, financial problems and things like that. And so, the government has a role to help provide guardrails for citizens so that they’re not victimized from a predatory industry. So, I’ll give you a perfect example. In South Carolina, they used to have slot machines and gas stations. And so, what would end up happening is, is that was also at a time where if you had a paycheck, you could go cash your paycheck and literally gamble it away right there, all in one spot, cash your paycheck, gamble it, lose it. And the cycle continues. And the state at one time said, No, this is not good, and so they outlawed those slot machines in those locations and things like that.
When you do see places where there is legalized gambling, give you a perfect example. When I was in high school, I used to live in Missouri, in the St Louis area, and it’s right along the Mississippi River and the Missouri River, and that was during the time where Illinois and Missouri were both getting riverboat gambling into the state. And so it happens, and then years later, I come back because of my job at the time where I’m traveling into Missouri, and all you see are signs about gambling addiction, get help here. These are the billboards that you would just see, billboard after billboard after billboard throughout the state. You’re starting to see those same things again through sports betting, because you cannot watch an ad without seeing a little blurb on the advertisement about where to get help for gambling addiction. So, everybody knows that it’s predatory. Everybody knows that it feeds vice. Everybody knows, what I mean by everybody I mean the gambling industry and the state understands that. But the love of money, as scripture outlines, is the root of all kinds of evil, and so taking that scripture says the love of money sees these things as acceptable losses, if you will, and that should not be the role of the government.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Let’s talk a little bit more about the effect that it can have on especially like these college athletes. I know you played college football at Auburn and also were a coach. What kind of effect does it have on these really young men and women who are playing sports, and how does it ramp up the pressure on them?
RASHAN FROST: I played a long time ago. This was before sports betting was legalized and the decision for sports betting was brought to the state level. When I was a college athlete, a lot of times when they talked about it. It was about the connections to organized crime, and so that’s where it was for the longest time in my coaching career as well. But what you’re seeing now, and it’s a two-fold problem, one, the athlete becomes commodified in the fact that the athlete’s value as a person is no longer on a fan level, but a level for your performance to make me money or lose me money. That’s the first problem. The second problem is the access of social media. Because athletes have public profiles with that commodification, there’s nothing stopping a fan to harass an athlete. Matter of fact, in a NCAA report the National Collegiate Athletic Association, they’re seeing one in three athletes are suffering from some form of online harassment that’s attributed to sports betting. Matter of fact, last year, the starting quarterback at Auburn was interviewed and was saying after one particular game and he had a very bad day that day, he was getting messages from fans demanding Venmo payments to reimburse them for funds lost. And the access that fans have with athletes now, on top of the commodification of the athlete based on performance, just opens up a whole ‘nother Pandora’s box of harassment and things like that young athletes today, and professional athletes, for that matter, today have to deal with that we haven’t had to deal with before.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: All right, we’ll talk a little bit about what we as Christians should do. Say, we live here in North Carolina, we see what’s going on. Do we have any recourse?
RASHAN FROST: The first thing I think we need to do is really wrap our minds around the issue. In other words, Christians have to see that it’s a problem. And the reason why I say that is because just recently, a matter of fact, last week, the sports spectrum released a study that was actually pretty concerning to me, and the idea that, first of all, we’re not being discipled on the issue of gambling biblically anymore. And so, the study showed that 35% of Christians surveyed held a neutral view of sports betting, and 42% held a somewhat or very positive view of sports betting. So, the first problem is to recognize that there’s a problem. We need to have a very clear view biblically that sports betting and gambling in general, is bad. It’s a negative thing that’s a rot, individually, familially, in our family levels and at the societal level, we need to see it as a problem.
Once we see it as a problem, then I think it equips us to do two things. One, I think we need to be involved in the political process. How we do that, and it’s going to be difficult, but we should advocate to our lawmakers to place guard rails on the gambling industry with the hope of incrementally seeing sports betting reduced and eventually diminish. I think we need to think of it that way on policy side, but I think more importantly, and as a pastor, I’m thinking about being prepared for the downstream effects that it’s going to have on individuals and families. And I think our biggest help is to shepherd and care for them in a way where we’re thinking that if we can reduce the demand, we could starve the supply, if you will. And so, part of the idea is, how do we do biblical marital counseling, biblical financial planning, and all these different things, so that families and individuals understand proper stewardship, proper family relations, the cultivation of proper virtues and affections and love for God, and as we take it on those approaches, we’ll be a people that’s present as the impacts of society are being felt. I would love to say that the policy side we could be able to really make a dent. It’s our job to do that, but there’s a lot of money being pumped in by the gambling industry, and so we have to figure out a way to help our lawmakers to provide guardrails, kind of similar to, as the White Paper discusses, kind of like how the tobacco industry.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: All right. Well, very interesting. We really appreciate your work on this. We don’t hear, as you said, we just don’t hear a lot about it. I think we need to be talking about it more. So RaShan Frost, where can our listeners go to find this resource that we discussed, “Don’t Bet On It: Theological Foundation Opposing Sports Gambling” and to follow your other good work over there at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
RASHAN FROST: You can find that in other resources on ERLC.com. That is our resource website, we produce a lot of different guides and things like that on a bevy of issues to help think biblically and practically about the issues that we deal with in the public life and in our family lives.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Sounds great. Well, Dr. RaShan Frost, thank you so much for being with us today on Family Policy Matters.
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