How Does Your Religion Impact Your Gambling

I hope this is not offensive in any way ... I am genuinely curious how people look at this topic. I could probably also find this information out online in the form of statistics, but I thought it would be more interesting to see what the other forum members actually have to say for themselves. Thanks in advance.

Please Answer with a PART A and a PART B:

PART A) What General religious background would you fall under? Examples:

Middle East - Judaism, Christianity, Islam, 

Oriental - Buddhism, Hinduism, Janism

Polytheist - Greek/Roman Pantheon

General Spiritual - Witchcraft, New Age, Wiccan, etc.

Athiest / Agnostic - This does not apply to me

All Others - Jedi, etc

PART B) How does gambling make you feel? Examples: is it fine or encouraged, to be avoided, a sin, something that makes you feel guilty, etc.?

For my own answer:

I believe in the Bible quite strongly.

I do not believe the Bible calls gambling a sin. However, it is closely associated with many sins such as greed / coveting as well as having many warnings about being foolish with your money. There could be an argument made that the 'casino' is evil because it purposefully makes money by causing the players to consistently lose bets.

Well ... over 150 views and no comments. I decided to start looking it up.

Islam outlaws gambling.

Judaism frowns upon it (it takes from people rather than giving to the community)

Christianity - Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Methodists, and some Southern Baptists outlaw it ... most denominations lean against it.

Hindu/Buddhist leave it up to the individual but tend to avoid addictive things and feel it is better to give than to take.

I did not quickly find statistics for other groups.

We surely appreciate your interest and your time here.

I just wanted to let you know that, even though no one commented on this topic yet.

It's quite interesting but since I'm not a religious guy I probably don't have much to say about it. I would assume a lot of people don't associate gambling with religion so maybe they don't have anything to say about it either. It's an unusual topic but maybe someone will comment on it for you.

Would be interesting to see this topic get more answers, you get one Up from me 🌺

Not being religious either I can't help directly.

I've just noticed from my travels that for example Buddhism does not forbid many things in general, but gambling - especially if it turns into an addiction - falls into the "your next life is going to suck so much if you do it" category. So it is not perceived very well in general in Buddhist countries (many forbidding gambling by default as well so...)

Whereas in Western Europe with a kind of light non-practicing Christian cultural background I never perceived this kind of poor image of gambling at all.

I guess one of my biggest questions is if there is a disproportionate number non-believers / atheists that gamble compared to the general population. In other words, do religious people actually gamble less?

Just from my layman's point of view, without the support of any facts, I would be inclined to think that it might be so. People who are religious I think are more able to resist such things, and some religions like you mentioned are against gambling.But it can also depend individually on people who have nothing to do with religion. Sometimes the environment you're in, the people you meet, your personal characteristics and traits, and various other things can come into it.

However, I believe that people who are strongly religiously oriented avoid it much more and more successfully than those who don't recognize religion.🙂

It has a great impact, as in Malaysia casinos are illegal 🙁

Hi!

And where is the line with the subject of religion, please? 🙂 In any case, take Germany or the UK as an example, two almost top regulated countries, and at the same time, the number of players preferring off-shore casinos—thus locally "illegal" casinos are still increasing...

I think what Mega888FD is saying is that Malaysia is officially an Islamic State (with some Buddhist influence) ... and therefore it would make sense for that territory to outlaw gambling due to religious reasons.

Oh, that makes much better sense to me. Thank you for pointing me back in the right direction. Sadly, the person also tried to promote a casino the other day. What a sad coincidence. 🙁