The Toll Gambling^* Takes

Earl L Grinols, the distinguished professor of economics at Baylor University says, “Gambling leads to increased crime, to suicides and to people ruining their lives when they get caught up in it. If the damage were spread evenly among all of us, there would be no gambling.”

Tom Coates, who founded Consumer Credit of Des Moines, a counseling agency, estimates that almost 15% of the people who come to his office for help each month gambled themselves broke. “In most cases, repayment in not an option,” he says. “They have dug the debt hole too deep.”

“With an increase in gambling, you get an increase in problem gambling – they just go together,” says Marvin Steinberg, a psychologist and executive director of the Connecticut Council of Problem Gambling. “When problem gambling takes over a person’s life, it’s as dangerous as any drug. It impacts the individual, the family, the workplace, the community – often before anyone is even aware of it.”

When a single addict gambles himself into bankruptcy, for example, there will be a line of stiffed creditors and court proceedings paid for from the public treasury. Likewise, a pathological gambler who embezzles his stake from the boss has to be investigated, tried and supervised in prison or on probation- all of which costs money. Factor in newly impoverished spouses and children, and the costs multiply. Considering that a bit more than 1% of the population is prone to pathological gambling and 5% to problem gambling, that add ups to more than 18 million potential disasters.

(Extracted from Parade, The Chicago Tribune, May 20, 2007, p.5)

• This analysis shows how true is Islamic command! The Qur’an says,

They ask thee concerning wine and gambling. Say: “In them is great sin and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit.” (Al-Baqarah 2: 219)

Also, on an other place,

Believers, intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows are an abomination- of Satan’s handiwork; eschew such (abomination) that you may prosper. (Al-Ma’idah 5: 90)