Q:
Is it permissible for men to go to the racetrack or to bet OTB?
A:
Now about betting, I don’t want to say no, but I don’t want to say yes either. Because betting is a delicate subject.
In Europe there was a lottery, and frum Jews – some of them – regularly invested in the lottery. But I don’t want to talk about that too much, because in America it has a different flavor. Some people become so intoxicated with betting, that they lose all that they possess. When you have a sensible populace, and they’re willing to take out fifty cents a week, maybe a dollar a week, and invest it, and then they pray to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it makes sense. שלח לחמך על פני המים – Cast your bread on the waters. You can’t tell.
But in America, it’s a weakness, it’s a sickness. It’s like a Jew who takes a little bit of whiskey sometimes once in a while. So he would ask, is it right to take whiskey? If you’re a European Jew, you take a little bit once in a while, it’s alright. But if you’re an American, and you go after the ways of the Irishmen, and the end will be you’ll get a red nose and you become alcoholic, I would say no. It depends. It depends.
But to go to the racetrack, absolutely not. Because there you’re mingling with the dregs of society. No question about that. People who go to the racetrack and say they don’t go for the sport, just for the exhilaration. They like horseflesh, they like speed, and so on, so stand on Ocean Parkway. You’ll see plenty of speed.
(July 1978)
