“VICIOUS, UNLAWFUL”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 745, 19 August 1929, Page 14

“VICIOUS, UNLAWFUL”

PREACHER CONDEMNS CHANCE APPEAL “FALLACIES OF GAMBLING” “The ethical conclusion, therefore, is that each and every act of gambling is socially illegitimate, personally vicious and spiritually unlawful.” rpHtFS the Rev. Leonard H. Hunt concluded a forceful sermon on “The Fallacies of Gambling, and the Gamble of Life,” preaching to young people at the evening service at the Mount Eden Presbyterian Church yesterday. Mr. Hunt said that the attempts of the big racing clubs to further degrade the community by the publication of dividends and tbe use of the postal services for the transmission of bets was being steadily resisted by all who loved their fellow men.

The preacher commenced by defining gambling simply “as tbe transfer of property from one person to another by an appeal to chance.” There must be at least these two elements to constitute a gambling act, he said. “The advocates of gambling usually bring forward two main arguments, and at first sight they seem to be very strong, nay, by some, incontrovertible,” . said Mr. Hunt. “The first is the argument from excess and the second is the

argument from similarity.” The argument from excess, briefly stated, said the preacher, was that the man who risks money that he can easily afford to lose and does so openly and honestly, is not thereby committing a sin. In other words it meant that the evil of gambling began only when the element of serious risk began for the man himself, or those connected with him.

‘But we are apt to forget that the fact that a man is not jnconvenienced by a wrong, does not turn that wrong into a right,” Mr. Hunt affirmed. “On that basis all kinds of shady transactions would be justified. In gambling every man can afford to win, but very few can afford to lose. The plain fact is that if gambling is wrong the question as to whether one can afford it or not is entirely irrelevant.” MENACE TO SOCIETY The preacher then asked why it was that gambling had always a disastrous effect upon character. He approached the question along one or two lines, starting with the foundations of social life.

‘The foundations of society have been built up through the progress of the ages. These foundations cannot be tampered with apart from serious danger to the whole fabric.” The transfer of property or exchange -was an essential basis of all civilised life. There were three forms of legitimate exchange, first for value received, secondly, for labour rendered, and thirdly as a free gift. The act of gambling was altogether outside these three forms of exchange. The whole system of social and commercial life would collapse if gambling became general. "The idea of something for nothing is most dangerously attractive, but no life can be built on such a foundation. The secret curse of gambling is just this desire to get something from your neighbour without giving him an adequate equivalent. “Gambling alone among all the vices destroys all the unselfish instincts.”

“The gambler is worse than the drunkard, for while thd drunkard has his sober moments, the confirmed gambler is always in the grip of this evil power. The excitement and the fever of over stimulated emotions absorb the spiritual faculties. “Every act of gambling is based upon the unlawful and therefore nonmoral principle of chance. Gambling, as involving the control of chance, is opposed both to reason and law. By an artificial arrangement chance Is made to usurp the place and function of reason and judgment which belong essentially to an ordered universe. The belief in luck and the belief in God are inevitably opposed.”