Jeanne* was trapped. Her social outings to the nearby casino had grown into an addiction to slot machines and video poker. “I’m hooked, and I could be facing bankruptcy,” the 59-year-old grandmother told her pastor.
Gulfport wasn’t a casino town when Dean Register accepted the call to pastor First Baptist Church. But soon after he moved there, Mississippi voted to allow casino boats, and the three coastal counties were soon transformed into a seaside Las Vegas, minus the showgirls.
Knowing the pain legalized gambling would cause in his community and his congregation, Register fought approval.
“Register? Is your dad that idiot who’s trying to fight the progress of gambling around here?” his teenage daughter’s new teacher asked on the first day of school. Yes, he was, for three years. Soon after the final vote, a casino boat was docked on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, almost directly across the narrow highway from his church’s stately columned sanctuary.
Register has many stories about gambling and its effects on his coastal church. They are common to gaming towns: the constant drain of resources to people who lose it all at blackjack and need bus fare home, the pillars of the community who fall victim to gambling addiction, and the weariness of a congregation fighting sin and its consequences.
“We’re in a dogfight for the souls of the people around here, and I need to be careful to be God’s spokesman, even if it puts me on the outs with culture,” the pastor says. Register had notable opposition to his stand, even from people within his own congregation. One deacon attempted to persuade him several times to back off, telling Register, “I’ve lived in places where gambling existed, and it’s good for the economy.”
“My contention to that argument is that I will never say gambling doesn’t bring money into a community,” Register explains, “but you have to be willing to pay the penalty for your moral, social, and educational compromises. It’s a swap-out that’s not worth it.”
Register moved inland, about a decade ago, to pastor Temple Baptist Church in Hattiesburg. But his battle with gambling isn’t over. In fact, today it’s becoming every pastor’s battle. With the rise of internet gaming, the battle is waged in cities of all sizes far from riverboats, reservations, or Vegas.
And pastors who thought railing against drinkin’ and smokin’ and playin’ cards went out of style three generations ago are finding the old sins are “in” again.
In 2001, total revenue from internet gambling was $3 billion. In 2005, that figure had swelled to $12 billion, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
And it’s not just a middle-aged adult addiction.
High school and college students are taking up cards again: 50 percent of college-aged males reported gambling on cards at least once a month, and 2.9 million Americans between the ages of 14 and 22 gamble on cards at least once a week, according to figures from Annenberg.
One reason for this could be how young adults perceive card playing.
“Our center organized a focus group of high school students on the subject of poker. They said it’s a sport. They see it on ESPN and the sports networks all the time, so they don’t even view it as gambling,” says Dr. Jeffery Derevensky of the Center for Youth Gambling Problems at McGill University in Montreal.
In other words, high-stakes poker is seen as a recreational sport—like golf, or curling, only much more exciting. That explains its rising popularity on campuses. “Most colleges are not even aware that gambling is a problem among students,” he says.
This means that the church has to play a key role in spreading the word about gambling addiction and rehabilitating those who have already succumbed.
A hidden addiction
What makes gambling addiction so devastating, as pastors discover, is that it is hard to spot, and many people don’t seek help until they’re hooked.
“Compulsive gamblers don’t look sick. They don’t look addicted, and they don’t look like they’re under the influence,” says Joanna Franklin, a compulsive gambling counselor in Baltimore, Maryland.
In fact, there are few warning signs. According to Franklin, someone who is suddenly and consistently spending large amounts of money, frequently taking out loans for excessive amounts, and maxing out charge accounts probably has a gambling problem. However, since most people keep their financial matters fairly private, this usually isn’t much of a clue to anyone other than a spouse or close family member.
Pathological gamblers typically get good at covering their habits, says Charlene Sloan, a counselor at the Problem Gambling Center in Las Vegas. “If a friend or loved one seems to be consistently lying to you, and if lying is out of character for them, then start to be suspicious,” says Sloan.
“There are people who have addictive personalities, and obsessive or compulsive tendencies,” says Elliott Anderson, pastor of Elgin (Illinois) Evangelical Free Church, and a former college counselor. “Pay attention to people with those kinds of personality qualities. Even those students who are obsessed with having a 4.0 are ripe for addictions, because of their obsessive tendencies.”
The effects of gambling addiction are staggering. The National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling estimates that between 20 and 30 percent of compulsive gamblers make suicide attempts, a rate much higher than that of any other addictive population.
Anderson is not surprised. “Think about it from the perspective of a man who has just gambled away his entire life savings, mortgaged his house so he can wager more, and then has to go home and tell his wife and kids,” he says. “A shotgun looks more welcoming than that.”
When Amanda* came home from her job as a cocktail waitress in a casino, there was a stranger in her house talking with her husband. The two men were putting price tags on everything in the house, including Amanda’s jewelry, their clothing, and all of the furniture. Amanda’s husband told her that he had gambled away everything they owned, and that this man was there to liquidate their assets.
Devastated, she didn’t understand why her husband had done what he did. They had nowhere to go. Eventually, she turned to a church that she heard had a program for gamblers. That church was Green Valley Baptist in Henderson, Nevada; its pastor, Frank Lewis.
Had Lewis, blindfolded, stuck a pin in a map and hit Las Vegas, he might have been able to explain why he pastored a church there. But he shrugs and says simply that was God’s leading that put a recent seminary graduate and his family in a bedroom community to Sin City. Soon his congregation was reaching out to hotel staff and showgirls—and gamblers.
“I found it very easy there for what I call a one-on-one textbook evangelism approach,” Lewis explains. “You can start up a conversation with somebody, and within a very short period of time, begin asking the tough questions.
“People will talk about that with you, and will just be bluntly honest about it. They are hungry for that, because they’ve never had it before. In that respect, it’s a much more positive ministry experience than what some people might imagine when they think of Las Vegas.”
Still, despite the endless opportunities for evangelism, cases like Amanda’s were far too common.
“What we usually got were people who had gambled away everything, asking if we could pay their rent, or their light bill,” Lewis, now pastor of First Baptist Church of Nashville, Tennessee, recalls. “Sometimes we did, but our main goal was to get them help for their addiction.”
Family shatters, church matters
The church began a program called “Gamblers Victorious” in the mold of other 12-step programs like Gamblers Anonymous. Lewis enlisted the help of a recovering ex-gambler to lead the ministry and write the materials for it, and the program quickly took off.
A short time later, however, the man succumbed once again to the powerful pull of the Vegas culture, and the program was discontinued. After that, church leaders approached each case as a one-on-one counseling situation. Lewis would talk to addicts about the importance of the cleansing power of Christ, and then refer them to a professional counselor in the area, usually offering to help pay their counseling fees.
“Spouses and family members of compulsive gamblers just don’t understand the nature of the addiction,” says counselor Sloan. “All they know is that their life is quickly spiraling out of control and they can’t do anything about it.”
Amanda’s husband refused to seek help for his gambling problem, and they eventually divorced.
“It’s devastating,” says Jason Poland, director of the counseling center at First Baptist Church in Elgin, Illinois, a city with its own riverboat casino. “Instead of spending time with their family, the addiction has taken over the person’s life. They develop anger issues, withdraw from family life, and stop building into the lives of their kids and spouse, which isn’t healthy for a family at all.”
Both Poland and Anderson believe that the church must play a significant role in counseling and rehabilitating gambling addicts. “I feel for those pastors who don’t have training in counseling gambling addictions,” says Anderson, “but don’t back off or get scared. If you don’t have the training, make sure you refer the addict to a competent Christian counselor who does.” Anderson adds that he feels it is vital for pastors to maintain relationships with qualified Christian counselors in their communities, especially those pastors without specific training in addiction counseling.
Poland says that the church’s responsibility toward addicts is the same as its responsibility across the board—it’s about discipling people. “They need to be discipled, they need to understand that they are enslaved to this desire, and we need to come alongside them, whether that’s in one-on-one mentoring or through something as specific as a Celebrate Recovery program.”
Poland urges pastors who counsel addicts to stress accountability. An elder or deacon in the church or leaders in the men’s ministry are good candidates for accountability partners.
Preach it, brother!
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the casino boats were among the first businesses back in operation on the devastated Mississippi coast coast. The likelihood is that their hold on the region will be stronger that ever. But Register is vigilant. If not on the legislative front, in his pulpit.
For three years Register served as point man for the resistance to gaming expansion in the state, not because he felt like this was a fight he could win, but because “it is a fight that my conscience will not let me avoid,” he said in a speech on behalf of James Dobson’s national commission on gambling in 1998.
Today, in a new setting, he still preaches on the vice and its impact. “I would add that for my brothers and sisters who stand in pulpits, we must not be silent on this issue.”
And given the rise of gambling on the internet, the need is greater than ever. Register typically emphasizes the economic and social consequences involved, as well as how the issue applies in context to God’s word, most notably, “Thou shall not steal,” and “Thou shall not covet.”
Lewis regularly called his Nevada congregation to “a higher ethic” in his sermons on the topic, emphasizing that winning money in a casino is winning at someone else’s loss, and that it is impossible to love your neighbor if you’re taking his money from him.
And in a few places, the fight to prevent expansion of gambling continues.
In Kentucky, for example, a movement has been underway since 1992 to expand gambling in the state to include slot machines and full-fledged casinos at many of Kentucky’s world-famous racetracks.
An organization of almost 3,000 congregations, the Kentucky Council of Churches, has stood in the way. The council’s executive director, Rev. Nancy Jo Kemper, encourages pastors who are part of the council to preach about the pitfalls of expanded gambling, particularly for families. The council’s family foundation sends out 10,000 newspapers a year to churches across the state highlighting the dangers posed by the gambling industry.
A happier ending
Amanda, the young cocktail waitress who walked into Green Valley’s recovery program, represents a ray of hope in a world of pseudo-flash and temporary glitz. Even though she lost everything, including her marriage, to her husband’s gambling addiction, Amanda became a believer in Christ.
After coming to faith, she proceeded to hand out maps from the Dunes Hotel to the church to co-workers and regular patrons at the casino. More than 25 casino employees showed up the evening Amanda was baptized.
“I could do that here in Nashville for 100 years and not get that kind of response to a baptism,” Lewis says with a chuckle.
Abram Book is Leadership editorial resident.
*names have been changed
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