{"id":43630,"date":"2014-10-10T15:39:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T20:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=43630"},"modified":"2022-02-23T15:43:02","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T21:43:02","slug":"should-i-stay-in-a-game-that-involves-betting-on-a-fantasy-football-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-i-stay-in-a-game-that-involves-betting-on-a-fantasy-football-league\/","title":{"rendered":"Should I stay in a game that involves betting on a fantasy football league?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>Hi Jeffrey,<\/p>\n<p>I have a question for you regarding a gambling situation I&#8217;m struggling to decide on.<\/p>\n<p>One of my friends has a fantasy basketball league with ESPN.com where people can have basketball teams with particular players from the NBA and they compete based on stats and points to win. His league requires everyone to put in a sum of money to play and at the end of the year, the winner of the league gets that sum of money. He has, however, offered to pay for my amount because I had already expressed to him my discomfort with playing for money. I could basically play with his league for free and at the end of the year if I win the league, I wouldn&#8217;t win the money prize, but he would donate the money to a charity of my choice.<\/p>\n<p>I did play last year, but I&#8217;ve been invited to play again and currently am part of the league. I have two problems with it right now. First is that it is still a form of gambling and, secondly, I think it&#8217;s against the rules of ESPN&#8217;s fantasy basketball as they say any form of gambling is prohibited in their rules section.<\/p>\n<p>My friend has expressed that this is a way we can keep in touch as friends. He lives a long distance away from me, though he is someone I&#8217;ve known since I was in high school. I don&#8217;t talk to him much, but we do talk about sports from time to time. This would be a nice way to maintain a friendship and have fun, but I struggle with the gambling part. Even though I&#8217;m not directly giving money and though I wouldn&#8217;t win the actual money prize, except that it would go toward a charity, I still feel discomfort in that I would be indirectly associated with allowing or supporting the gambling that would be going on in the league. So I&#8217;m wondering what your advice would be for me? Should I play in the league or should I leave it and tell him my thoughts on why?<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for your help.<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<p>You are correct that it is still a form of gambling. It not only violates the site&#8217;s rules, which exist so that the company doesn&#8217;t break federal law, it is also morally wrong. See: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-gambling-sinful\/\">Is Gambling Sinful?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The excuses are misdirections. Sure, you are not gambling with your money, but you are gambling with your friend&#8217;s money. In doing so, you are showing support for gambling. And if it takes doing something morally wrong to maintain a friendship, then it isn&#8217;t much of a friendship in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>Find another way to stay in touch that doesn&#8217;t involve gambling.<\/p>\n\t<h2>Response:<\/h2>\n<p>Thanks for the advice, Jeffrey! God Bless!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: Hi Jeffrey, I have a question for you regarding a gambling situation I&#8217;m struggling to decide on. One of my friends has a fantasy basketball league with ESPN.com where people can have basketball teams with particular players from the NBA and they compete based on stats and points to win. His league requires everyone&hellip;<\/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,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[815],"class_list":["post-43630","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":14797,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-wrong-to-win-money-from-a-casino\/","url_meta":{"origin":43630,"position":0},"title":"Is it wrong to win money from a casino?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I basically gamble for money. I gamble on major league baseball and nothing else. I consistently win, having a 58% winning rate, going on two years straight. I am not trying to brag; I just want to tell you where I am and how I feel about this. This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","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":43630,"position":1},"title":"Not What They Told You &#8211; 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 &quot;Audio&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26897,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-to-win-the-lottery\/","url_meta":{"origin":43630,"position":2},"title":"How to Win the Lottery","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"David Osteen via Pleonast True story for anyone's gambling lesson: There is a man at the Texas City church of Christ named Marlin Ridenour. He works for the City of Galveston and oversees the water department. The year the Texas State Lottery commenced in 1991, one of the employees wrote\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8879,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-make-believe-gambling-in-a-game-still-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":43630,"position":3},"title":"Is make-believe gambling in a game still wrong?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 1, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: There is one game I like to play which is a completely free game. There is a new feature called lottery where I am guessing you pay with game points for a chance to win something. Is that considered a sin in that case? It is impossible for a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","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":43630,"position":4},"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 &quot;Sermon&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sermon","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/sermon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41724,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-reporting-a-possible-theft-gossiping\/","url_meta":{"origin":43630,"position":5},"title":"Is reporting a possible theft gossiping?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: This is complicated so I'll sum it up for you: I play a sport and there is a guy who runs the state championship tournament. Our team and a few local teams in the area think he's been possibly pocketing money from us because of recent events that have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43630","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=43630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}