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?<\/p>\n\t
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[815],"class_list":["post-26028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-gambling"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6718,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-raffles-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":26028,"position":0},"title":"Are raffles wrong?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 23, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good evening, I have a concern. As far as I know, I am completely sure that games like lottery, bingo, casinos, etc. are incorrect as are all kinds of raffles or sales sponsored by the church, since it is not authorized by the New Testament for the church to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14810,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/gambling\/","url_meta":{"origin":26028,"position":1},"title":"Gambling","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Text: Colossians 3:1-10 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Gambling is now rampant in our nation \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Not too long ago, the only gambling available were raffle tickets, bingo games at the Catholic Church, and casinos in La Vegas, Nevada. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0No longer! Gambling is everywhere: at the gas station, at the corner market, even at my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sermon"","block_context":{"text":"Sermon","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/sermon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":47764,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-the-stock-market-considered-gambling\/","url_meta":{"origin":26028,"position":2},"title":"Is the stock market considered gambling?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 26, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is the stock market considered gambling because they are no guarantees and it involves a risk of loss? When one buys stock they do it in hopes of that stock going up and that could be considered covetousness, greed and not being content; otherwise, they could just put their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26187,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-advisable-to-be-involved-in-bitcoin-or-cryptocurrency\/","url_meta":{"origin":26028,"position":3},"title":"Is it advisable to be involved in bitcoin or cryptocurrency?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, Please I want to make an inquiry on bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and the like. As a Christian, is it advisable to be involved in these? Answer: Cryptocurrencies are electronic funds. They do not represent anything in the real world, such as a stock of gold somewhere. They are not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":54437,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/not-what-they-told-you-gambling\/","url_meta":{"origin":26028,"position":4},"title":"Not What They Told You – Gambling","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: Proverbs 28:19-22 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Gambling is not a new problem \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But it has become a big business. Every state in the United States has some form of legal gambling \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Though Nebraska is the least state addicted to gambling, it still exists (the next lowest are Alabama,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14799,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-gambling-sinful\/","url_meta":{"origin":26028,"position":5},"title":"Is Gambling Sinful?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by T. Sean Sullivan Are you familiar with, or have you ever heard any of these terms: Raffle, bingo, chances, scratch n\u2019 win, lottery, or gaming? Have you ever made a \u201cwager\u201d on the outcome of a sports event? The Super Bowl is coming up in a couple of weeks.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}