Good Monday morning, everyone. We start this new week talking about gambling and not for

the first time. Of course, Pastor John, we have a handful of helpful episodes on this theme

already in the podcast archive. Elsewhere, you've talked about how lotteries pray on

the poor. It's a point you made in a 2016 article, which was titled seven reasons not

to play the lottery. And reason number five was that it prays on the poor. You made the

point, but only briefly there. I'd like for you to dwell on this point here in the podcast,

how does the lottery pray on the poor? And why should we care that it does?

Well, let me begin with a few observations taken from various studies. First, just a quotation

from that article that you mentioned that I wrote on this some time ago. I said that the lottery

supports and encourages a corrosive addiction that prays upon the greed and hopeless dreams

of those entrapped in poverty and then gave this example. Those earning $13,000 or less

spend an astounding 9% of their income on lottery tickets. Now, that was a statistic from maybe

six years ago or so. Here's a few more recent things. People who make less than $10,000 a year

spend on average $597 on lottery tickets. That's 6% of their income. Another observation,

the odds of winning a state powerball lottery are considerably less than being struck by lightning.

For example, the odds of winning the January 21 powerball drawing in Tennessee was 1 in 292.2

million while the odds of a lightning strike death hover in the 1 in 2.3 million area.

So it's a pretty weak possibility to say the least. But let's clarify what we're talking about.

We're not just talking about powerball with its million dollar payout. There are many different

kinds of public gambling lotteries. Some far more destructive for the poor than others,

Lotto America, Mega Millions, Lucky for Life, InstaPlay, Pulltab, Scratch Games, all of these

created by government to help pay the bills. So when we think of how the poor spend money on

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