Yesterday, I wrote an article about why you should not play the lottery. As I have read the reaction to this article, it got me thinking:

• One of the things I commonly see is how people are going to do such good things with the money when they win the lottery. My point is that you can already do good with the money God has already given you. And when you combine your efforts, the good you do is multiplied.

• The other thing I have seen is a lament about how all the money spent on lottery tickets could have done such good if it had not been spent on lottery tickets.

The problem with both of these sentiments is that they are just talk. They are good intentions that are never fulfilled.

So, I want to offer a challenge for you to consider. Instead of talking about doing good – do some good! Instead of buying lottery tickets – use that money to actually make a difference. You might think it is only $2 and it will not make that much of a difference. But most people don’t buy just one ticket. So maybe instead of $2 it is $10 or $20.

Now take the money that you might use towards lottery tickets and donate it to a worthy cause. I am sure you can think of one or two. It might be your church, it might be a homeless shelter, it might be food bank, it might be a foreign mission. If only 10 of us were to take the challenge at $10 that is now $100 going to good.

Don’t wait, do it now. If you put it off there is a good chance you will forget.

Finally, share this challenge so the good we do can be multiplied. And feel free to share in the comments the worthy cause you’ve helped.

It’s a $1.3 billion jackpot. That is a lot of money. It is also such a scam. I will make a bold statement. The lottery is evil. I hate it. I detest it. It ruins lives. It promotes a lie. Consider the fact that we don’t call it gambling the lottery. We call it playing the lottery. Why is that?

Even those who win the lottery will lose. Do a Google search on Billie Bob Harrell. This is one example among countless others, where winning the lottery was the worse thing to happen. There is one study conducted that showed lottery winners typically had lower levels of happiness than those who recently became quadriplegic.

Consider the math. I’m sure you’ve seen the picture about how dividing the lottery equally among Americans would bring an end to poverty. It has been exposed as bad math. But how much of poverty would be solved if those who played the lottery kept their money?

But let us look at the math for a moment. Consider that the jackpot is $1.3 billion. If the government keeps 50% and pays out 50%, that means $2.6 billion has been spent on purchasing tickets. If you divided that among 300 million Americans, that comes out to $8.60. Keep in mind there are many Americans that don’t play the lottery. No one in my family of five purchased a ticket. That means one person spent $43 additional to make up for us. In many parts of the world, that is a person’s entire income for two months.

The worse thing about the lottery is that it preys upon those who are most vulnerable. Statistically speaking, the people who play the lottery the most are the ones who have the least to spend on the lottery. Someone finds themselves in a difficult situation, and the lottery gives hope of getting rich quick. It offers hope in the middle of hopelessness. But the truth is that the lottery is false hope. It only blinds us to our real hope. The lottery is a system built on robbing the poor of their money, and when we play we are taking part in that.

You have less of a chance of winning the Powerball than a traditional lottery. This means that there are bigger jackpots and more hype surrounding it. More false hope leads to more people purchasing tickets. If you are going to put your hope in gambling, at least, go to a casino. With the casino, you will have some odds of winning. The promise of get rich quick is a lie. You are not going to win the lottery. You are wasting your money by playing the lottery. Yet, we rationalize it away. It is only $2. But those dollars add up over time. Putting $50 in the lottery, you might as well flush it down the toilet.

The other thing I hear is about how people are going to do such much good with the money. I know that you are a good-hearted person, but all that money is going to do more harm than good. People will begin to value you for your money rather than for being the person you are. Your relationships will suffer, and it will be hard to distinguish your real friends from those who befriend your money.

We somehow think that an amazing inflow of money is all of a sudden going to enable us to do good. I hear about how the soon-to-be lottery winner is going to donate most the money to charity. The truth of the matter is that you can do good now. God has already given you everything you need to make a difference. God will increase the blessings in our lives to multiply the good work we are already doing. But if generosity is not already evident in your life, more money is not going to make you generous.

One of the best Bible verse for this is Proverbs 13:11:

“Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.” (Proverbs 13:11, ESV)

God is not against wealth. There were many wealthy people God used in the Bible. But wealth gained through poor stewardship of gambling the lottery will never garner God’s blessing. Those gained wealth through corrupt means in the Bible, such as tax collectors, were always told to walk away from it.

In the end, recognize our money is God’s money. He entrusts it to us. When we gamble our money, we are ultimately gambling God’s money.

Participate in and share the lottery ticket challenge

Questions for Reflection

1. Why do we play the lottery when it is so foolish?
2. How does our hope in money cloud the hope we have in God?
3. From where does generosity come? How do we practice generosity even when we have little?
4. Share your comments.