Hardin grew UCA as he grew his own profile. The school became the sustaining personal fiefdom for him …Hardin cut corners, because he could. He got in some kind of personal financial bind — the speculation is gambling — and broke both the bounds of decency and the law to forge a document and help himself to an early payout of deferred compensation.
I have always had mixed emotions when I have to stand behind long lines at the convience store waiting for the mainly poor people to finish buying all their lottery tickets. First, I really do want to tell them to take that money and buy milk for their kids. Second, I want to thank them for paying the voluntary tax that I am not dumb enough to pay. However, sometimes I want to tell them that the government is scamming them. I have been told that if gambling is wrong that I should not buy stocks because it is really the same thing. I don’t think that is correct and it reminds me of a story that my pastor used to tell.
My former pastor, Adrian Rogers, rightly noted:
Gambling is morally wrong. Why? Because nobody wins at gambling without somebody else losing. True, legitimate business is a win – win arrangement.
I make a widget. I sell it for a dollar. I get the dollar, you get the widget. I win and you win. In gambling, for every winner there must be a loser. Gambling is profit and pleasure at somebody else’s pain and loss.
Two people meet in a back alley and one puts a gun on the other person and takes what belongs to him, they call it thievery. But if two people meet in the casino and one takes what belongs to another, they call it gambling. Oh, they don’t call it gambling, they call it gaming.
When somebody gambles and wins, he has the spirit of thievery. When he gambles and loses, he’s been very foolish. So the Bible says in Habakkuk 2:6, “Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his!”
A great film clip I found on youtube that gives some statistics about gambling addictions.
The Daily Hatch 