High Stakes
With internet wagers unregulated, gambling is on the rise and closer to home. How will we help the hooked and persuade the unconvinced?
Abram Book
October 1, 2006
Jeanne* was trapped. Her social outings to the nearby casino had grown into an addiction to slot machines and video poker. "I'm hooked, and I could be facing bankruptcy," the 59-year-old grandmother told her pastor. Gulfport wasn't a casino town when Dean Register accepted the call to pastor First Baptist Church. But soon after he moved there, Mississippi voted to allow casino boats, and the three coastal counties were soon transformed into a seaside Las Vegas, minus the showgirls. Knowing the pain legalized gambling would cause in his community and his congregation, Register fought approval. "Register? Is your dad that idiot who's trying to fight the progress of gambling around here?" his teenage daughter's new teacher asked on the first day of school. Yes, he was, for three years. Soon after the final vote, a casino boat was docked on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, almost directly across the narrow highway from his church's stately columned sanctuary. Register has many stories about gambling and its effects on his coastal church. They are common to gaming towns: the constant drain of resources to people who lose it all at blackjack and need bus fare home, the pillars of the community who fall victim to gambling addiction, and the weariness of a congregation fighting sin and its consequences. "We're in a dogfight for the souls of the people around here, and I need to be careful to be God's spokesman, even if it puts me on the outs with culture," the pastor says. Register had notable opposition to his stand, even from people within his own congregation. One deacon attempted to persuade him several times to back off, telling Register, "I've lived in places where gambling existed, and it's good for the economy." "My contention ...
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