State of Faith

October 12, 2026

For many Christians, gambling has long raised moral concerns.

But President D. Todd Christofferson’s condemnation of the practice at the recent general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made the message explicit.

“For us as Latter-day Saints, overarching all other concerns is the fact that gambling is morally wrong,” said President Christofferson, second counselor in the church’s First Presidency. “Gambling is built on the desire to obtain something for nothing. Its structure requires that any gain comes at others’ expense. It’s hard to reconcile that with the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.”

He then evoked the concept of stewardship: “In addition, our resources are stewardships, and the question is not merely whether a purchase is legal but whether it builds anything — in us, in our families or in those around us. In the end, gambling produces nothing of value and enriches only its purveyors.”

Stewardship — the belief that resources are gifts from God and should be managed responsibly — is one of the central arguments other Christian denominations have used to make the biblical case against gambling. The Southern Baptist Convention invoked this principle in a resolution last year, arguing that “sports betting does not comply with the biblical principles of stewardship, work and integrity, encouraging reckless management of resources entrusted to us by our sovereign Lord.”

The Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination, made a similar argument in a paper that was adopted in 2015: “Since all things belong to God, people are placed in the position of stewards who must give a proper accounting for everything given to them in trust.”

The question of stewardship also raises a more fundamental issue: What is the purpose of gambling?

It can certainly be an irresistible dopamine hit and a form of entertainment that many gamblers would defend. But for many, gambling holds the hope of becoming wealthy, a shortcut to transforming a life.

Paul Lambert of BYU’s Wheatley Institute noted in a recent podcast with McKay Coppins that 4 in 10 sports bettors say they gamble to make money. That’s an understandable pull, but the data shows how delusional it is. Coppins said somewhere around 95-99% of them lose money.

“It’s not a habit where you make money,” he said.

With the rise of prediction markets, where you can bet on anything, including political and military outcomes, these concerns become even more complicated. If there is a bet involved, any situation can turn a human tragedy into a self-interested quest for a financial win. And that’s deeply troubling not just from a religious point of view but also a human one.

Gambling ultimately encourages impulses Christianity tries to restrain — greed, the exploitation of vulnerable people, jeopardizing of family financial security — and undermines the Christian idea of stewardship. It elevates the impulses and desires of an individual over what’s prudent and wise and what benefits the community.

President Christofferson’s talk found approval with some unexpected personalities outside the faith. Hasan Piker, a socialist streamer who also self-identifies as a Marxist, gave a “shout out to the Mormon church,” according to a clip from his stream circulating on social media. “I’m in support of the Mormon church on this one,” he said. “This is what religion is supposed to be about, dude.”

He went on to say that religion should rein in the “gross, exploitative forces of capitalism by way of religious social conditioning.” Piker and many Latter-day Saints may disagree about capitalism itself, but there seems to be common ground in the criticism of the system’s excesses and in the belief that economic behavior carries moral obligations to others.

Conservative commentator Mike Cernovich, with 1.4 million followers, also weighed in that gambling was a “zero sum because there has to be a loser,” and: “You all know gambling is degenerate.”

When agreement on fundamental questions of public life feels scarce, gambling is emerging as an unusual point of convergence. The reasons for the anti-gambling stance may differ, but the underlying question seems to be shared: What is the price — financial, moral, social — that we are willing to pay for a chance, however slim, to win?

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Last week, ancient scripture scholar Dan McClellan, who is a Latter-day Saint, spent three hours on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast discussing how the Bible came together, who wrote the New Testament, and how ideas about hell and the afterlife have changed over time. The appearance has spurred some debate about McClellan’s personal religious beliefs that he’s gone on X to defend. Still, it’s notable that McClellan is the first Latter-day Saint to be invited on the podcast, which has an audience of about 11 million per episode.

There is a church in Minneapolis that came up with a creative solution for its underutilized chapel. Mount Olivet Lutheran Church plans to host coffee and beer hours — with the goal to convene people and create community, not to proselytize.

“Congregations are definitely going through kind of a recalibration,” Allison Norton, director of Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford International University, told The Washington Post. “They’re asking new questions about their purpose and their mission and what does it mean to respond to crisis while also being willing to change to meet new realities.”

Where do you find a sense of community these days?

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