I've heard and seen people that condemns gambling, due to their religious believes, some because they think that gamblers are irresponsible people, while others are what they've heard about gambling addicts. This sets of people will tell you that gambling is sin, gamblers are people who wants to take shortcuts to riches and gamblers are not responsible or to be trusted with money.
Besides Islam, no religion has openly criticized gambling. You will never find in any religious holy book, where it is written that gambling is a sin beside the holy Quran. The truth is that everybody wants to take short cut to riches. If I am sure that a particular game will make me rich, I will gladly play it. If I know that singing a particular song will make me rich, I will gladly sing it. Nobody wants to labor for a long time before becoming rich. For me I desire to retire early, so I will be willing to do anything legal to become financially stable. Many people gamble for entertainment but If they win big, that's their luck
But when trouble comes, that is the best time to judge people's characters, it's then that you will know whether they practice what they preach. So I'm wondering in a scenerio where people with these anti gambling believes and mindset finds themselves in a situation where they perhaps needed to save a life urgently and what is needed is money for quick surgery. And the only person that volunteered to give the money is someone that says he/she won the money in gambling, I wonder if the anti gambling person in dire need will collect the money.
In such conditions, when someone's life is at stake, people don't usually consider where the money is coming from because what they want is just the money. They will gladly take the money from the gambler, tell him thank you, and even bless him with prayers. I watched a film sometime called John Q. The father had to kidnap doctors because he wanted to force them to perform surgery on his son. He achieved what he wanted and also went to jail. But he was a hero for saving his son's life.
The morale in this story is that people that condemns gambling should not judge, because it's not a crime to gamble. Although we have irresponsible gamblers, but then there are irresponsible people in every areas of life. So what do you think about the people that condemns gambling?
They can only condemn gambling if it is against the law of the land, religious belief, or if the person is a gambling addict.