Benefits of Gambling

Many people know the harms of drinking alcohol and that it is prohibited in the Quran, but few people know that Quran also mentions minor benefits of it. More interestingly, even less people know that the verse that mentions these facts about alcohol also mentions the same for gambling!

They ask you about wine and gambling. Say, "In them is great sin and [yet, some] benefit for people. But their sin is greater than their benefit." And they ask you what they should spend. Say, "The excess [beyond needs]." Thus Allah makes clear to you the verses [of revelation] that you might give thought. (2/219)

Today, gambling and alcohol are among the greatest enemies of family life. They threaten the future of the youngsters. Still, some studies suggest that controlled consumption of wine may have some limited health benefits besides its harms. For gambling, however, we hear no one mentioning goodness. Regardless, people drink and gamble.

Whatever people are doing for worldly pleasure is a different issue, but what draws my attention is the fact that these are mentioned in the Quran! So, this issue deserves a special attention and at this time, I want to focus on gambling.

It is known that gambling is addictive, and the neurophysiological pathways underlying it point at the feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, expectation, adventure and excitement. Especially the expectation part of it is crucial here, because even successive losses cannot defeat this feeling. It happened once, maybe this time, maybe this time! When voiced like this, it may sound vain and silly, but the impulse to satisfy that feeling of expectation is so strong that rational fight cannot defeat it.

If you look at the historical context of the revelation of the above verse, you will see that gambling at the time was also used as a means to do charity or to serve other people, hence the instruction in the remainder of the verse. But the same is not true of now, and the text of the verse does not imply a confinement. That is the information about gambling, it having major harms and minor benefits, is unconfined. Therefore, we can generalize the "notion" of gambling to other instances of life. Let me clarify what I mean.

If we were to summarize the addictive aspects of gambling, we could say attraction of the unknown, similar to the attraction of the prohibition. But this goes against the basic natural instincts of self protection. By gambling, you are progressively taking risk, and that risk is proven to lead to destruction. Still, why does the brain allows such a pleasure mechanism given such a dangerous result?

I am going to answer that question with a question. What are the benefits of these neural process underlying the gambling? This question can also help us understand the benefits of gambling, also mentioned in the Quran.

Gambling, in general, leads to an activation that spans across the brain, and as a result, it induces pleasure and satisfaction. Such activation can help reduce the symptoms of depression. But we know that this picture is a deceptive one, hiding the big picture of destruction. So, is it possible to obtain only the benefits and avoid the harms?

In order to answer this question, we can think of other activities that resemble gambling. Extreme sports, performing arts in public, violating rules and laws, fighting against status-quo, and sometimes even procrastination...

Gambling is risk taking. It means sacrificing what you have, even if it is very dear to you, for the sake of something greater. These aspects are actually present in all creative acts, innovative initiatives. Especially the second item here, innovative initiatives, is a very wide concept encompassing social movements, economic enterprises, inventions and discoveries. Why? Because it always takes some few bold people to walk against the status-quo, to defy the tradition, to seek a broader and deeper explanation in the face of existing theories. Don't we tell such people that they are gambling, anyway? But, do they give up? NO. And, aside from the ontological aspects of the issue, part of the reason is analog to what is going on in the brain while gambling.

So, God knows best, the minor benefits of gambling that we could harvest through licit activities are due to risk-taking, adventure-seeking, dissatisfaction with what's available. In this context, the following verse is very poignant. Before reading it, though, let me remind you two things. First, it also relates to spending in the way of Allah, just like in the second half of the verse in the beginning. But note that "spending" in these verses is not confined to wealth as in others (e.g. 2/261-262, 2/265). Second, this verse was revealed when companions of the prophet Muhammad pbuh leaned towards a comfortable life (i.e. free of risk and adventure) while disregarding the risky actions and sacrifices for the realization the global peace promised by God.

And spend in the way of Allah and do not throw [yourselves] with your [own] hands into destruction [by refraining]. And do good; indeed, Allah loves the doers of good. (2/195)

In short, this verse tells you to take risk, if you want to be risk-free in the long run. Conversely, if you don't take risk, your comfort in the short run will be replaced by huge losses in the long run. This long run can refer to both the worldly life and the afterlife.

Having read all of the above, now I am going to leave you with another verse, a hadith, and the link for a previous blog:

O you who have believed, whoever of you should revert from his religion - Allah will bring forth [in place of them] a people He will love and who will love Him [who are] humble toward the believers, powerful against the disbelievers [those who conceal the truth]; they strive in the cause of Allah and do not fear the blame of a critic. That is the favor of Allah ; He bestows it upon whom He wills. And Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing. (5/54)

"Indeed Islam began as something strange and it will return to being strange as it began. So Tuba is for the strangers." (Tirmidhi, 2629)