Bisimillâh Rahmân Rahîm |
National Lottery! Back-Door Taxation |
"O You Believe! Intoxicants, Gambling, Polytheist practices and Superstitious customs are an abomination from the doings of Shaitân, shun them so that you may prosper. |
"Shaitân only desires to cast hatred and animosity between you through intoxicants and gambling..." |
With the introduction of the National State Lottery, more than half of South Africa’s adult population is expected to gamble each week. Approximately 20 000 retailers have been groomed to consort with "Lotto" the first game of the national lottery. Over 12 million leaflets are being distributed countrywide and will be delivered directly to 80% of South African homes. |
The Holy Qur'ân has equated gambling with intoxicants, shirk, and superstition, for they all inherently breed, class distinction, lawlessness, manipulation, and a murky underworld that thrives on hatred and animosity. |
Gambling further leads to addiction, which needs to be sustained even at the cost of marriage, children, and a steady job. |
Dr Robert Custer has identified three phases to pathological gambling: |
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The Odds: Possibility of Winning |
"He (Shaitân) makes promises to them and deludes them with false hopes and Shaitân's promises are nothing but deception…" |
"The odds for
(winning) lotteries are even worse than casinos. The Minnesota State Lottery, for example,
pays out only sixty percent of the money it takes in. – substantially worse than slot
machines or any other type of casino gambling. And the chances of winning the $5000
jackpot in the Minnesota scratch – off lottery are approximately one in 240 000. You
are six times more likely to die from a lightning strike than to win this jackpot." |
"And to have a
fifty – fifty chance of wining the jackpot of the British National Lottery, you would
have to spend five pounds a week for the next 28 000 years" |
The Losers |
"If all the losers of this lottery (British National Lottery) were to stand in line, they would reach approximately 6800 miles, which is approximately the distance from New York City to Japan." (Gambling: What are the odds?) |
The Memory Lapse |
"Say: The impure and the pure are not equal, even though (the sheer) preponderance of the impure entices you." |
There is a common tendency to focus only on the good. For example, hearing that someone has won the lottery sticks in our mind more than hearing that someone has lost the same lottery. We remember winners more than losers; we focus on the "one win" and lose sight of the million losers. |
The lottery is a vice, which arouses the gambling instinct, it is an impurity that pollutes the mind, heart and morality of an individual." |
Luck |
"Allâh sustains whom He will without any measure." |
Sustenance is determined by none other than Allâh, He expands or constricts the sustenance of whom He will. Affluence is not a haphazard bounty, acquired through chance or luck, it is distributed according to the will and wisdom of Allâh" |
It is sheer greed if not madness to believe that there are moments when some magic wand would sway fortune our way. Belief in luck is no more than superstition and deflects from the basic truths and facts necessary to avoid fraud and deception. The absurd believe in luck, indicates a grave lack of faith and makes people susceptible to deception and manipulation by lotteries and other gambling establishments. |
Manipulation |
Gambling is a manipulative and destructive method of exploiting people’s greed and weaknesses. The "near miss" trick makes the losing combinations appear to be very close to a large jackpot, giving the illusion that the gambler has almost won. You would hardly entertain the thought of winning if you were asked to pick a number between one and 20 million. So instead, lotteries make players choose small numbers, strengthening the illusion that players are close to winning. |
Back Door Taxation |
"And when it is told to them: "Do not corrupt the earth" they say "We are only doing good..." |
Lottery is a stupidity tax. "The more stupid you are, the more you pay." |
Governments, whose duty is to protect citizens from exploitation and fraud, are actually guilty of illiciting revenue from the back door. |
"No
politician, however troubled by the lottery’s harmful effects, would dare lower taxes
or cut spending sufficiently to offset the revenues a lottery brings in. With state hooked
on the money, they have no choice but to continue to bombard their citizens, especially
the more vulnerable ones, with a message at odds with the ethic of work, sacrifice, and
moral responsibility that sustains a democratic life." |
One of the main arguments used to legitimise lotteries is the revenue it generates for social development. However, the indirect costs of gambling to the state such as increased crime, and lost productivity cost the state more than it actually gains. According to a study by Money magazine, states without lotteries spend a greater portion of their total budget on education than states with lotteries. Lottery proceeds simply allow the legislature to reduce by the same amount the appropriations it would otherwise have had to allot for that purpose from the general fund. |
Conclusion |
Lotteries are addictive, they are like eating popcorn, its very hard to stop once you’ve started. Lotteries, like the "dangling carrot" entice, and manipulate. They are like small dosages of poison that contaminate our logic and distort reality. They shift focus from Allâh as The Provider, to an assortment of incoherent numbers and factors that supposedly enrich and provide. To justify lotteries because of their purported noble ends is tantamount to justifying the sale of drugs or sex for noble aims. |
"Allâh is pure and only accepts the pure." |