Is a “bag raffle” gambling?
Question:
Is it wrong to participate in a bag raffle? I purchase my groceries from a health food store, and when I bring in my own grocery bag, they subtract five cents from the total, and they offer me a raffle ticket so that I can put my name in a jar to possibly be chosen to win a 30 dollar gift certificate. Is that considered gambling in any way?
Answer:
It is not gambling because you are not placing your money at risk based on a random event. The company wishes to award its customers, but not having enough funds to do it with everyone has chosen a random drawing to give out that bonus. If you had to purchase the raffle ticket in order to have a chance of winning, then that would be something different. Then you would not be buying a product or a service, only a random chance of winning at other people's expense.
