Phil Blackwell, pastor of Chicago Temple (United Methodist Church) in Chicago, said the opinion legalized the lottery online, but it did not change the fact that the Illinois lottery is “cynical, short-sighted and cowardly.”
Blackwell characterized the thinking of Illinois lawmakers this way: “‘Since people are going to throw away their money on gambling anyway, let’s get as much of it as we can.’ Unlike levying a ‘sin tax’ on the sale of alcohol and cigarettes, by devising and promoting the lottery the state government is the pusher of the ‘sin’ itself, dedicated to producing more and bigger losers in order to make it pay.”
Good on them for speaking up. This is an issue where I’ve know Bishops and other clergy from very different camps to speak with some unity. We always lose on this – the pro-gambling folks are always setting this up “for the children and schools”, after all – but the church seems to be consistent about sounding the warning, at least on this issue.