When asking your question you clarified that you do gamble but limit the frequency of the activity, limit the amount of money put at risk, and maintain fiscal responsibility in your giving to the Lord. You want to view gambling as an acceptable form of entertainment that offers at least relatively harmless excitement, but you are really not sure if this is right.

Since gambling has become so pervasive in our culture, Christians increasingly wrestle with questions like yours. It’s a question that won’t go away.

Always sinful? No.

The main reason we don’t classify gambling as sin is that we don’t have the right to label something sinful if the Bible doesn’t. Gambling was well known in Bible times and a widespread obsession in ancient Rome, yet God’s Word contains no prohibition of the practice.

A second factor is that there is no universal definition of what gambling is. To make a sweeping statement that “gambling is wrong” could condemn all risk taking and games of chance that conceivably would include investing in the stock market, involvement in the insurance industry, or playing penny-ante parlor games.

Often sinful? Yes.

Historically Christianity has strongly opposed most gambling practices because they are hard to reconcile with timeless biblical principles for God-pleasing lifestyles. Here’s a partial list of issues that surface when gambling is considered: