Q:
Is playing lottery considered like not having yiras Shomayim?
A:
I know a man who plays the stock market. And he told me recently that he lost about 400,000 dollars in the stock market all together.
I said, “Why do you continue doing it?”
He said he’ll make it someday yet.
Now, there’s no harm in buying a lottery ticket. No harm. No sin at all. If you want to add a little tefillah, “Hakadosh Baruch Hu should give me hatzlacha,” you can try that too. But it doesn’t make sense, of course, investing much money.
Now, we had a case of a man here who started putting big money on horse races. Until finally we get him before an adam gadol, in the times of Reb Moshe Feinshtein zichrono livracha, we got him in front of Rav Moshe and we had him stop it. That’s already a taaveh of wasting money. It’s a chet.
So therefore, gambling like that is a waste of money; a waste of your income, a waste of resources and it’s absolutely a chet. But if a person wants a little bit of investment on a gamble, like putting money on a certain thing, a small amount of money, no harm. But absolutely it’s against the seichel and against the Torah to put in big investments in gambling.
TAPE # E-62 (May 1996)
