The Catholic Church holds the position that there is no moral impediment to gambling, so long as it is fair, all bettors have a reasonable chance of winning, there is no fraud involved, and the parties involved do not have actual knowledge of the outcome of the bet (unless they have disclosed this knowledge),[33] and as long as the following conditions are met: the gambler can afford to lose the bet, and stops when the limit is reached, and the motivation is entertainment and not personal gain leading to the "love of money"[34] or making a living.
In general, Catholic bishops have opposed casino gambling on the grounds that it too often tempts people into problem gambling or addiction, and has particularly negative effects on poor people; they sometimes also cite secondary effects such as increases in loan sharking, prostitution, corruption, and general public immorality
No, I was pointing out the hypocrisy with the Catholic view.
You are adding to what I pointing out about the wiki and Christianity generally not having a problem with gambling itself: "The Catholic Church holds the position that there is no moral impediment to gambling" -- again no moral issue with gambling itself. Your source to back up your argument is simply not what you made it out to be.
I don’t think that is hypocritical, more just nuanced. Church bingos aren’t putting people into poverty.
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06375b.htm
Your critique of my initial comment seems to be hinging on the single phrase of gambling itself. I just meant the commonly used sense of the word, today, which IMO implies the aspects that the Catholics label as negative. (I.e. most people don’t call bingo a gambling activity.)
But sure, Catholicism has a nuanced view and it’s inaccurate to say they are against gambling in itself.
> Sure, we could get into a discussion on the morality of gambling itself, but if we look at pretty much every global ethical tradition (Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, etc.) it is frowned upon strongly.
Yes, that was how it reads to me, that gambling itself is frowned on; based on the post that reply was for where they stated "I would say gambling in itself isnt immoral." and that the problem is addiction and money. And I also agree with that. But gambling is gambling and while no part of it is immoral to me (I hold higher standards for that word), there are major issues with it due to greed.
Which is what your souce is saying Christians have a problem with, not it being widespread or happening at all -- simply the trying to get rich, the addiction to money -- thats the sin. Not gambling, gambling is fine; it's when it turn into a money issue, then there is a problem. And that can happen at your local bingo parlour or Macau, or Vegas or the back-room of a gas station or your buddy's poker game. The Christian bible/church have an issue when greed happens, not gambling (widespread or not).
What does the type of gambling matter? If we focus on the core issues: greed and money problems -- over trying to "protect" [my emphasis] others from the bad gambling -- we end up helping them with adjacent greed/money problems. Labeling outside things as the problem is the problem. Help the people learn to master the inner compulsion towards these things (and other skills to help pull themselves out of dire situations); the rest is just trying to find an enemy to blame because helping others in a real way is hard.
Greed (in a generous def of the word, as in the wanting/desire of as much of the thing as possible [money in this case] quickly and/or easily despite the cost) is a root cause of many of the issues people create for themselves with gambling.
> Although the bible does not condemn gambling, instead the desire to get rich is called to account numerous times in the New Testament.
And the Catholic's problem with it is the competition:
> Some parish pastors have also opposed casinos for the additional reason that they would take customers away from church bingo and annual festivals where games such as blackjack, roulette, craps, and poker are used for fundraising.