Southern Baptist Convention Resolution Likens Sports Betting to Porn, Gay Marriage
Posted on: June 9, 2025, 02:09h.
Last updated on: June 9, 2025, 02:09h.
- A resolution expected to pass at this week’s Southern Baptist Convention will oppose sports betting
- Southern Baptist leaders say betting on sports constitutes sin
- Southern Baptist leaders will also adopt resolutions opposing same-sex marriage and pornography
The 2025 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting & Pastors’ Conference gets underway tomorrow in Dallas at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. The nation’s largest Protestant denomination, the thousands of SBC members attending the two-day affair are set to be asked about an array of issues the church opposes, including pornography, same-sex marriage, and sports gambling.
Founded in 1845 in Augusta, GA, the Southern Baptist Convention is the second-largest Christian body in the United States behind the Catholic Church. Each June, thousands of pastors and “registered messengers” of Southern Baptist churches, along with SBC members, unite to “celebrate what God is doing through our combined ministry efforts and to deliberate on our direction for the future.”
SBC leaders hope pornography and same-sex marriage are not part of that future. Along with proposed resolutions calling for a legal ban on pornography and a formal request to the United States Supreme Court to reverse its 2015 decision that same-sex people have the same fundamental right to marry as heterosexuals, the Annual Meeting is set to consider sports betting.
Gambling Resolution
A major element of business during the two-day convening is to consider proposed resolutions from the SBC Resolutions Committee, which is appointed by the SBC president. On the agenda is a resolution “on the harmful and predatory nature of sports betting.”
The Southern Baptist Convention has a long-standing history of opposing gambling in its various forms and recognizes its destructive potential,” the resolution, one of eight to be considered, begins. “The rapid expansion of legalized sports betting presents significant spiritual, moral, ethical, and societal concerns, and the sports betting industry fosters a culture of greed while specifically exploiting and preying upon young adults, the impoverished, and those with addictive personality traits.”
The resolution, which is expected to pass, claims that online sports betting — today, legal and operational in 33 states and Washington, D.C. — has led to “never-before-seen levels of gambling addiction and financial ruin.” The resolution declares that sports betting does not “comply with the biblical principles of stewardship, work, and integrity,” but instead encourages “reckless management of resources entrusted to us by our sovereign Lord.”
The declaration asks Southern Baptists to “denounce” sports betting and express “deep concern regarding its detrimental impact.” The resolution concludes by calling on all sportsbook companies to “cease their exploitative practices” and for lawmakers “to curtail sports betting and to address its disastrous effects through policy and legislation.”
The order also prompts SBC leaders and pastors to continue their work educating their congregations on the church’s belief that gambling constitutes sin.
Sin Industry?
Gambling, along with booze, tobacco, adult entertainment, and weapons manufacturing, are among the commonly called “sin industries.”
In 2022, Columbia Business School wrote a piece that revealed that religious groups and denominations were the first to label certain publicly traded companies and sectors as “sin stocks.” Those groups refrained from investing in businesses engaged in what they deemed morally objectionable enterprises.
Today, some financial management firms also avoid sin industries.
“If you ask anybody on the proverbial street, they’ll say, ‘Yes, institutions avoid sin stocks, and it hurts those stocks,'” said Shivaram Rajgopal, the Kester and Byrnes Professor of Accounting at Columbia Business School. “That is the accepted wisdom.”
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