God vs. Money: 90% of all gamblers quit *right* before they win big
By David Metz
***If you or a loved one is struggling with addiction to gambling, call the national hotline 1-800-GAMBLER ***
For more information, please see the ‘Sources’ section (1).
For those of us whose childhoods fell in the early 2000s, you may remember an MMORPG called RuneScape. For a simple point-and-click RPG with blocky graphics, one thing many people I talk to remember about this game was how long they would spend fighting monsters for hours and hours, in the hopes that with each one slain, the extremely low chance of the rare item they’ve been looking for would drop. For those of us who had more restricted computer access, you may have been into trading card games, which were popular around that time, such as Pokémon. Many friends would buy booster packs in the hopes that their favorite card would be obtained. Allowance money that would have otherwise gone towards a candy bar from the school vending machine at lunch (seriously, why are those even in schools?) goes towards buying a pack of small pieces of cardboard, hoping the desired one is pulled, and your friends are bending over backwards to trade with you. Kids in the modern day may be more accustomed to the loot boxes as popularized in games such as Overwatch and Fortnite. In essence, all of these examples are the same: I expend some amount of time/money and in exchange I have some probability of obtaining the desired item/result. This might seem innocent enough, sure. This is a waste of time. It is also a minor form of gambling. Before we go forward with this thread, let’s define our terms.
According to Merriam-Webster, gambling is “the practice or activity of betting, the practice of risking money or other stakes in a game or bet”. To gamble is “to play a game for money or property, to bet on an uncertain outcome: to stake something on a contingency, take a chance”. Most relevant in these definitions is the idea of risking something on an uncertain outcome, often using a store of value/tender of value (money) as collateral.
Going back to our childhood examples, the RuneScape player risks their limited time quickly or slowly obtaining the item they want, and for the card player, they risk their money for the chance to get a particular card they want, though the odds of knowing this are much less available. I do not think this is a harsh interpretation of these activities. Sure, as kids, we see it as entertainment or a means to an end. However, the underlying principle is the same as in more mature versions of gambling. Casinos are a prime example; taking your money to a building in which you play card games (that are never in your favor to win) with the potential to walk away with empty or filled pockets. Pennsylvanians are all too familiar with the PA Lottery billboard advertisements, in which a cute groundhog will tell you how many millions you could win if you merely bought a few scratch-off tickets. FanDuel and DraftKings are streamlined services that allow for betting in fantasy and real sports. Our society makes it easy for children to be introduced to the concept of gambling in a relatively harmless context. As those children age, they then have options to make riskier bets.
To put into perspective what gambling is like in North America, and some of the psychology behind it, I’ll be citing from Casino Hunter (2) and the APA (3). Here are some stats (note that gambling statistics have been collected from 2021 - recent months of 2025):
Slot machines and table games generated the most income at $43.79 million. (2)
85% of gamblers will use their mobile devices to gamble online. (2)
Approximately one-third of the adult U.S. population played at a casino. (2)
Online sports betting hit record highs in 2023. (2)
Men are more likely than women to gamble, with adults under 50 gambling more than those older than them. (2)
Nearly one-fifth of college graduates and non-college graduates reported getting ads for gambling services, regardless of it they had ever gambled. (2)
Over half of adults aged 18 - 22 reported making at least one sports bet in 2023. (2)
Nearly two-thirds of students living on campus will make a bet on sports, while commuting and remote students are far less likely. (2)
Roughly 4% of people being treated for substance abuse will also have a gambling disorder, going up to 7% of those in psychiatric wards or that have Parkinson’s. (3)
96% of people with gambling disorder have other disorders related to mood, impulse control and/or anxiety. (3)
Most vulnerable demographic is those with low incomes, as they have more to gain than to lose. (3)
Young males are more likely to develop a disorder, up to 5% of them. They outnumber females 2 to 1 in this disorder. (3)
There may be a link between loot boxes in video games to gambling. These loot boxes have the same psychological draws as slot machines. (3)
In the United Kingdom, 20% of gamblers said their introduction to gambling was via loot boxes. (3)
40% of adolescents will be exposed to simulated gambling in some manner. (3)
Genetics play a role, as do those with issues in the striatum, prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus of the brain. The male prefrontal cortex develops later on average, the area of the brain for regulating impulsivity and decision-making. (3)
These were just two sources, and as always, make sure to perform more research. I have some reflections and thoughts on these numbers. It is not surprising that mobile devices are used to facilitate gambling, as they have many other social ills that have cropped up via social media. I know many adults who have at least set foot in a casino, with most not coming back frequently, but every once and a while as a night out. Despite never gambling, I can attest to getting ads for it ad nauseam, especially during March Madness, ever since starting college in 2016. Most people I know who have gambled are men, though I know some women as well who have tried winning big. It is not surprising that gambling disorders often run parallel to other disorders. While the number is small, it should still be of concern. I’m sure many of us remember playing poker with Luigi in the Super Mario 64 port for the DS, or the slot machines in the older Pokémon games. That would have been the initial exposure for many Zoomers and younger Millennials, and I’m sure there are plenty more direct examples. The development of the brain and understanding it is something we all ought to be aware of, and how it can influence our lives. Anecdotally, I remember many guys back in high school, especially those who engaged in more risky behaviors than the girls did, which is likely tied to the prefrontal cortex developing later for us men. Something else worth noting is how on-campus students were more likely to gamble than those still at home and/or remote. That strikes me as particularly telling of how being uprooted can disorient us, with the new environment away from our previously established order impairing our judgment while we adjust. Loot boxes being a gateway to gambling is not surprising either, as that is quite literally all they are. More pernicious is how these are often targeted at minors.
I am not a professional in addiction counselling and will not pretend to give advice that is too out of my wheelhouse. The most I can offer in terms of advice is to surround yourself with a supportive community that does not engage in activities or norms that might trigger the urge to gamble. In researching for this post, I came across the gambling equivalent of Alcoholics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous (4). They offer in-person and virtual meetings in many areas domestically and internationally. Share this with someone who needs it.
The overindulgence of these types of habits and activities is something we should be mindful of with the younger generations. The last thing we want is for relatively harmless activities to be linked to a throughline that leads to more insidious habits. Some people are more susceptible to certain habits than others, just as some are more predisposed to heart disease than others. No habit, good or bad, is born overnight. Little by little, they form from other small actions every day that culminate in them. If your kid is starting to get a little too excited about that next booster pack, maybe that’s a sign to lay off for a while, or entirely. I’m not a parent, so take what I say with a grain of salt. As adults, we need to be vigilant even of ourselves. The temptation of the millions one could win from that single scratch-off ticket should give us pause and remind us how Christ calls us not to live in enslavement to the passions. You were made to be in communion with God, not to throw your money away at material things which will not make you any happier in the long run. We do not belong in the casino; we belong in church. Walking into a card shop is a lot different from walking into a casino; remember that, too. Be mindful of what behaviors and activities in your lives are gambling, or are akin to gambling, and consider which is more important: that thing, or a properly ordered life in Christ? We, as Orthodox Christians, must steel ourselves against a culture that continues to normalize this bad behavior. This applies to many things in modern American culture. In the prior installment of this series, I shared some personal advice that has helped me combat financial mistakes and live more intentionally, moving closer to the opposite of gambling. If I am ever going to plug my content, this is the one time where I deem it to be appropriate.
A quick note as well: I am aware many churches will do basket raffles as one means of fundraising that is different from the tried-and-true food festival. Fun though these may be, and sometimes the baskets up for grabs are quite extravagant. However, we should not normalize gambling. I get that it goes to good uses, but it does not set a good example. Raising money for churches is a topic all unto itself, so I’ll leave this here (for now).
Years ago, I was talking with a friend about income inequality (as one does), because what would nerdy teenagers fascinated by politics do with their spare time? My friend, whom I can best describe as utilitarian, said that he’d try to win the lottery. He would win big and do everything he could with the bullion of cash in his pocket to change the world for the better, in whatever way he could. While the prospect of philanthropy was alluring, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something was off. I was not as strong in the faith back then, but I had a natural dissonance between two things: obtaining money in a way that could easily become unhealthy for the sake of doing only good with it. I knew gambling was wrong, but my friend had a solid argument from his utilitarian perspective that I was ill-equipped to refute at that time. Now, it is different. If I obtain a resource through morally questionable means, but use it for good, isn’t the result more important, anyway? Can good ever come out of something obtained badly? How should Orthodox Christians navigate this? In the next installment of this series, we’ll put this quandary to rest.
Sources:
(1) About the National Problem Gambling Helpline - National Council on Problem Gambling
(2) Top 30 Key Gambling Stats & Facts in the US for 2025 - CasinosHunter Hub
(3) How gambling affects the brain and who is most vulnerable to addiction