O Be Wise

Recognize Gambling’s Harms and Reject Its Enticements

President Christofferson explains that gambling becomes increasingly accessible through smartphones, online sports betting, casino games, and prediction markets. He warns that its appeal, especially among youth and young adults, can conceal serious financial, relational, and spiritual costs.

Simply put, the industry’s entire business model is built on its customers losing money.

It robs time from studies, relationships, and career development. It crowds out things of value and in their place fosters greed.

The larger concern is that continuous, mobile access can transform occasional entertainment into repeated behavior that displaces saving, increases debt, and creates far-reaching family and social costs.

I pray that you will not treat gambling lightly.

• Gambling puts money or something of value at risk by betting on an outcome or event.
• Continuous, private access makes gambling easier to repeat and harder to keep separate from daily life.
• Peer influence, marketing, and social acceptance increase its appeal to youth and young adults.
• Knowing that the odds favor the gambling industry does not necessarily protect people from participating.
• The consequences extend beyond individual financial losses to families, relationships, and worthwhile pursuits.

• What experience helps you recognize that widespread acceptance does not make an activity wise or right?
• When do boundaries around smartphone use help you protect your attention, relationships, or spiritual life?
• What appropriate, non-identifying example can you share of an activity crowding out things of greater value?
• How does counsel from a parent, leader, or trusted friend help you recognize a risk you initially underestimate?

Ask Where Your Choices Lead

Drawing on President Dallin H. Oaks’s counsel, President Christofferson invites us to consider the future consequences and opportunity costs of our decisions. Gambling uses time and resources that could support saving, relationships, and worthwhile pursuits.

At different times, President Dallin H. Oaks has reminded us that “as we make current decisions, we should always be asking, ‘Where will this lead?’ … What is the effect on our future of the decisions we make in the present?”

President Oaks points out that each choice has an “opportunity cost,” that is, “if we spend time doing one thing, we lose the opportunity to do another.”

What is the opportunity cost of gambling? What do you forgo in terms of money, time, relationships, and worthwhile pursuits? Where does it lead?

• Present choices shape future opportunities and consequences.
• Time spent on one activity means losing the opportunity to spend that time on another.
• The cost of gambling includes what a person does not save, develop, accomplish, or strengthen.
• Confidence in personal self-control does not remove the need to evaluate a choice carefully.

• When does asking “Where will this lead?” help you make a better decision?
• What experience shows you the long-term value of a small, consistent choice?
• When do you give up an appealing activity to make room for family, education, service, or worship?
• How does choosing to save or use money purposefully bless your life or someone else’s?

Protect Others Through Your Example

President Christofferson teaches that our choices influence people who look to us for guidance, including children and those who are newer or weaker in the faith. He applies Paul’s warning about becoming a stumbling block to explain why seemingly casual gambling can lead others into temptation.

But whether you are right about that or not, have you considered how your example might affect others?

A little gambling that seemingly has only a minor impact in your life may be more costly to them if they take license from your example.

Take heed, lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak.

Every soul is precious, and Christ died for him, for her, as He did for you.

• Our behavior teaches others, even when we do not know they are watching.
• A choice that appears manageable to one person may encourage harmful behavior in another.
• Paul teaches disciples to consider how their conduct affects those whose faith is vulnerable.
• Concern for souls for whom Christ dies gives us a reason to refrain, not merely to moderate.

• Whose example helps you understand what faithful discipleship looks like?
• When do you discover that a child, friend, or fellow Church member notices your choices?
• What experience helps you choose another person’s spiritual well-being over your own preference?
• How can you share an example of positive influence without identifying or embarrassing someone who struggles?

Follow Christ’s Giving Path

President Christofferson identifies gambling as morally wrong because it seeks something for nothing and depends on gain at others’ expense. He contrasts that approach with loving our neighbors, honoring our stewardship, and following Jesus Christ’s giving path.

For us as Latter-day Saints, overarching all other concerns is the fact that gambling is morally wrong.

Gambling is built on the desire to obtain something for nothing.

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.

The act of taking or trying to take something from someone else without giving value in return is destructive of spiritual sensitivities.

• The moral concern about gambling exists even apart from addiction or financial loss.
• Seeking gain at another’s expense conflicts with the commandment to love our neighbor.
• Legality alone does not establish whether an activity is worthy of a disciple of Christ.
• Our resources are stewardships to use in ways that build and bless.
• President Oaks contrasts Christ’s giving path with the adversary’s taking path.

• When does giving bless you in a way that seeking personal gain cannot?
• What experience helps you see money, possessions, or abilities as a stewardship?
• When does considering another person’s well-being change a financial or recreational decision?
• How does an act of generosity help you feel closer to Jesus Christ?

Use Your Time and Resources to Do Good

President Christofferson’s invitation goes beyond avoiding gambling: he asks us to live productively and contribute to others’ well-being. He encourages us to devote the time and resources we preserve to good causes, righteousness, and worthy work.

Today, I am pleading with all of us to live life on a higher plane.

A key part of a life well-lived is contributing to the well-being of others.

It is being and doing better without others doing worse.

My plea again is not only to refrain from gambling but to use the time and resources saved thereby for doing good.

If we hunger and thirst after righteousness, there are many good things we will pursue and other things that, because they are incompatible with righteousness, we will put out of our lives entirely.

O be wise; what can I say more?

• God gives us life and agency, and we are accountable to Him for how we use them.
• Worthy work contributes to prosperous, just, and equitable societies.
• A higher way of living seeks progress without requiring others to suffer loss.
• Avoiding gambling creates opportunities to use time and resources for good.
• Hungering and thirsting after righteousness leads us both to pursue worthy activities and to remove incompatible ones.
• The concluding invitation is to act wisely.

• When does replacing an unworthy or unproductive habit with service bring greater purpose to your life?
• What experience with honest work helps you appreciate contributing rather than merely acquiring?
• How does joining a good cause bless you and the people you serve?
• When does seeking righteousness help you recognize something to remove from your life or something good to begin?