A leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints warned Saturday that an\u00a0explosion in gambling\u00a0driven by online prediction markets and sports betting is fostering greed, particularly among youths, while producing \u201cnothing of value.\u201d<\/p>\n
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D. Todd Christofferson, one of the top three leaders of what is known widely as\u00a0the Mormon church, said rampant betting among teenagers and young adults is robbing time from their studies and relationships as smartphones make gambling possible anywhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor 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,\u201d Christofferson said at the faith\u2019s twice-annual\u00a0general conference.<\/p>\n
The declaration that prediction markets are gambling puts the conservative church at odds with President Donald Trump. The Republican\u2019s administration has argued platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket don\u2019t constitute gambling and therefore shouldn\u2019t be subjected to\u00a0restrictions\u00a0in states such as Utah, where the church is based.<\/p>\n
Utah has been at the forefront of the legal dispute over who regulates the markets and whether they should be considered finance or gambling. A federal judge ruled in August that Utah officials can\u00a0enforce its strict-anti-gambling laws\u00a0on prediction markets.<\/p>\n
Legislation was enacted this year to make Utah\u2019s gambling laws stricter and amend some of the language so that they\u2019d almost certainly apply to prediction markets.<\/p>\n
Prediction markets allow wagers on anything from whether it will rain in Los Angeles, to if the United States will go to war.<\/p>\n
\u201cOr even, if you can imagine, the timing of the Second Coming,\u201d Christofferson said Saturday. \u201cWhere do you go to collect on that bet?\u201d<\/p>\n
Opposition to gambling is common among religious organizations. The\u00a0United Methodist Church\u00a0refers to it as \u201ca menace to society.\u201d The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, has condemned gambling several times and in 2025 declared sports gambling inconsistent with biblical principle.<\/p>\n
Gambling is forbidden in Islam and considered a vice among Hindus. In the Catholic Church, gambling is not in itself a sin, but is considered potentially problematic.<\/p>\n
For more than a century, Utah kept gambling almost entirely out of the state. There are no casinos, no lotteries and no racetracks that allow bets. The prohibition is rooted in the ideals of members of the Latter-day Saints church who view gambling as a path to selfishness and addiction.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rise of predictive markets, and the legalization of sports gambling, this is just really taking off all across the country,\u201d said Matthew Bowman, a professor of religion and history at Claremont Graduate University in California. \u201cAnd a lot of institutions \u2014 religious, state and otherwise \u2014 are grappling with this problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s speech comes as the church has been wading into political issues under\u00a0President Dallin Oaks, a former Utah Supreme Court justice who became the faith\u2019s top leader last October. Church leaders this year have opposed state ballot measures that would establish rights to abortion in Idaho and Nevada.<\/p>\n
Yet the institution\u2019s approach to political issues \u2014 using public statements and behind-the-scenes lobbying to convey its message \u2014 has become more calculated in recent years, Bowman said.<\/p>\n
The shift followed public blowback to the church\u2019s stance against\u00a0California\u2019s Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot measure that sought to ban gay marriage. In that case, Bowman said church leaders encouraged its members to get directly involved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Mormon #leader #decries #explosion #gambling #sports #betting #prediction #markets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A leader of The Church of Jesu… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2394,9037,2619,1383,1552,166,9036,983,980,327,5471,4648],"class_list":["post-5950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-betting","tag-decries","tag-explosion","tag-gambling","tag-leader","tag-markets","tag-mormon","tag-prediction","tag-predictions","tag-sports","tag-sports-betting","tag-sports-gambling"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n