Thursday, April 8, 2010

So, Is It Gambling If...

...your school has a raffle ticket sale for a Toyota Prius and then decides that you can just take the cash if you want?

I'm just wondering how far we push or pull on the gambling issue? If you tell me that you can put 20 bucks in a slot machine in the hopes of winning $15,000 I recognize that this is a gamble. It would probably only happen in Vegas or Atlantic City or at one of our many fine casinos here on the reservations. But what happens when that slot machine shows it's face on our school campus and disguises itself as a fund raiser and a raffle sale? Hmm. If I buy a $20 ticket from the parent council in hopes to win a Prius, is that a gamble? What if I don't want the Prius and just buy the ticket to support the school? Is that no longer a gamble because I don't expect or want to win? Now, what if that Prius isn't the only prize? What if I have a choice between the Prius and the $15,000 that it is going to cost the council to buy the car? Now it's a cash transaction and it sounds a bit more enticing and a bit more like gambling, doesn't it? I might not expect to win, but who wouldn't want to win that cash, right? And, if I do feel like this new cash incentive is gambling, but the other was not, am I guilty by association by purchasing the first ticket?

Ah, the questions I could pose. I feel like Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde trying to discount a man's paternity suit on a baby conceived by sperm he sold to a sperm bank: "Why this one sperm? ... any masturbatory emissions, where the sperm is clearly not seeking an egg, could be termed reckless abandonment." Alright, it's not really the same thing, but it feels like I'm grasping at straws in reverse here, trying to justify a raffle that is really an expensive slot machine. Ya know?

I know, it's the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law, right?

Anyway, this is my way of saying that... if you want to support DMS and buy a $20 raffle ticket you can now have $15,000 in cash if you don't want the car. Good luck to all, and call my bishop if you think I'm encouraging gambling :) A-ha!

1 comment:

proud parents said...

Or, you could just write a check and make a donation to the school without the expectation of anything in return. Um, I'm thinking that's the "Christian" way. The gambling thing is just a way to draw in the heathens, isn't it? ;)