It's a huge Sin to Gamble, What about investing in Stocks/ buying Lottery? (8 mins)

1:14All religion is nonsense. I'm blaming the whole religion, not this guy that's making a sin. I'm thinking that this guy, this one little guy, represents the entire Judaism, like he's Moshe Rabbeinu. In reality, he's just making a sin; he's just one guy. Unfortunately, it's a very big sin. It's considered Chillul Hashem, and Chillul Hashem is something you can't fix in this world until you die. It's not something you want to do. Why is gambling not allowed? Why is it not allowed, and what makes it gambling? If you invest in the stock market, isn't that gambling to an extent? It depends on how you invest in the stock market. If you're investing in a stock market where you are buying without any research whatsoever, you're just picking any symbol and you're buying it, and moments later you're selling it, without any rhyme or reason of what you're doing, then yes, you're 100% gambling. But if you're buying the company, you're buying the stock of the company, after you've researched the company, you understand the business, and in essence, what you're doing is that you're investing into their business. You want to own a piece of their business. Obviously, you can't own the entire business of General Motors or Microsoft or Google, but you want to own a piece of their future. That's not gambling, that's just investing like in any other business, just that you're buying a small piece. Without any rhyme or reason of what you're doing, then yes, you're 100% gambling. But if you're buying the company, you're buying the stock of the company, after you've researched the company, you understand the business, and in essence, what you're doing is that you're investing in their business. You want to own a piece of their business. Obviously, you can't own the entire business of General Motors or Microsoft or Google, but you want to own a piece of their future. That's not gambling; that's just investing in any other business, just that you're buying a small piece.

2:30Gambling is pure statistics. It's pure chance. It's pure luck. Now, when you're betting against the house, you're betting against the casino, and then you're disrespecting the parnasah that Hashem gave you. In essence, instead of using the money that He gave you as a tool to give tzedakah, you're using it for things that are bad. The second thing is, as far as when you're betting against—so people would say, okay, you know something, I'm not betting against the house. Hashem specifically states that we're not allowed to gamble. But what about when I play against my friends? Not in a casino, but I play in my house, right? I'm not in a casino, so it's not chillul Hashem. You can't take money from your friends ever. Even from your enemy, you can't take money. they're giving you the money with a heavy heart. They don't want to give it to you, right? You're causing another person sorrow, which means that even if you're playing a house game and each guy puts 50 bucks on the table, and at the end the guy who wins the Texas Hold'em tournament gets all of the money, it's considered like you stole the money from each one of them. And just so you know, for stealing, there's a very, very deep punishment. I'm not going to go into all of the details of it, but in essence, what it means is that somebody that stole money...

3:44If they don't do teshuva during their lifetime, they have to come back to this world. They have to go into a gilgul. They have to reincarnate. They cannot go into Gehinom being a thief. No thieves allowed in Gan Eden. So if you were going to bet on a Super Bowl, like I was going to, but I didn't, good. You didn't do it. It's not a sin. The first time, when you're about to make a sin but you don't, Hashem doesn't count it as a sin. The second time, you're about to make it, and... In essence, you try to do it, but it just doesn't succeed. It is considered a sin. But the beauty of this world and the beauty of Hashem's mercy is that you can do teshuva. You realize, okay, Hashem, I didn't know that this is such a big sin. Pray to Hashem, and Hashem loves you even more for it. Isn't auctioning, like now we auction, like brachot and stuff? You’re selling something. It's not gambling. Gambling is, in essence, you're putting money at risk. Putting money at risk without any rhyme or reason other than desire offers no logical basis for your actions. The statistics are against you. When you invest in a business, there is a higher likelihood of making money because the business provides a service or produces something in return. Similarly, when you invest in a stock or a product, you receive something tangible, and statistically, you are more likely to succeed in this investment.

5:13When you're investing in a casino, when you're doing something with a casino, the statistics are so far against you that only a small 3 or 4 percent of all gamblers in history have ever been successful. Is it true that you're not allowed to invest in a company that works on Shabbat, that sells and stuff on Shabbat? It depends. It depends if the company is only owned by Jews and they are specifically operating. Shabbat, and it can become a problem. But in reality, in the world we live in today, you know, no public company is only owned by one person. It's owned by a bunch of people, and to limit investments to companies that don't work on Shabbat would pretty much make the entire stock market unavailable to all Jews, which is not possible. So, for better or for worse, we need to navigate this complex issue with wisdom and guidance from halacha. It's allowed to invest in companies that work on Shabbat, but the way they justify it based on halacha is that the goyim are the ones working on Shabbat and not the Jews, even though that may not be the case. You said that we can't blindly invest in stocks, but if we study them, research about that specific stock, we can invest in it. So I understand that you can't blindly go sit at a blackjack table and play.

6:40Play the game, but if you study the game and count cards, yes, exactly, you're counting cards because you're cheating. It's not the rules of the game, so that's already an additional sin you've added to the list. If you count cards, you're cheating, and if the casino knew that you're counting cards, they wouldn't let you play, right? Yeah, so it's considered cheating. So now you just added another sin. So the way to win is to cheat. Now, okay, so that's why I said, any table games, like the roulette table, all that stuff, you could throw it in the garbage; there's no chance in the world you could ever justify it. The one thing that people thought they could justify is playing against people, like playing poker, because they're not playing against the house. But like I told you, anytime you win with poker, it's considered as if you stole the money from the other person. What if it's on the table? I don't have to steal from him? It's even worse. What if they don't know you're Jewish, you're not wearing a kippah, you're just there with a hat or whatever. If they don't know that you're Jewish, okay, you're still stealing from them. If they don't know that you're Jewish, okay, you're still stealing from them. So it's not right, but you're stealing from them. How about a lotto ticket? According to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, you're allowed to buy one lotto ticket, the minimum amount, one dollar. And how long, a year? No, if there's a lotto, you buy a lotto, it's considered an insignificant amount of money for you or anyone.

8:01So, it's considered a dollar. I think they even capped it at two dollars because there's one ticket that's two dollars. But you can't buy any of these cards that are five dollars and ten dollars. And now people develop these addictive habits, where they buy these cards and spend $100 a day on these types of cards. You can't do any of that. You can buy a single lottery ticket because it's considered that even if you lost the money, it wouldn't necessarily change anything. But again, you have to be very, very careful with gambling because it's not worth it.