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Mormon leader decries explosion in sports betting, prediction markets · Best of: Features

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  Mormon leader decries explosion in sports betting, prediction markets. This
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  article is being read by an automated voice generated by Everlett. Salt
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  Lake City, the AP, a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ
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  of Latter day Saints, warned Saturday that an explosion in gambling driven
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  by online prediction markets and sports betting is fostering greed, particularly among
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  youths, while producing nothing of value. D. Todd Christofferson, one of the
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  top three leaders of what is known widely as the Mormon Church,
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  said rampant betting among teenagers and young adults is robbing time from
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  their studies and relationships, as smartphones make gambling possible anywhere. For us
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  as Latter day Saints, overarching all other concerns is The
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  fact that gambling is morally wrong. Gambling is built on the desire
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  to obtain something for nothing, Christofferson said at the Faith's twice annual
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  general conference. The declaration that prediction markets are gambling puts the Conservative
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  Church at odds with President Donald Trump. The Republicans administration has
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  argued platforms such as Calchee and Polymarket don't constitute gambling, and therefore
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  should be subjected to restrictions in states such as Utah, where the
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  Church is based. Utah has been at the forefront of the legal
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  dispute over who regulates the markets and whether they should be considered
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  finance or gambling. A federal judge ruled in August that Utah officials
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  can enforce its strict anti gambling laws on prediction markets. Legislation was
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  enacted this year to make Utah's gambling laws stricter and amend some
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  of the language so that they'd almost certainly apply to prediction markets.
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  Prediction markets allow wagers on anything from whether it will rain in
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  Los Angeles to if the United States will go to war. Or
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  even, if you can imagine, the timing of the second coming, Christofferson
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  said Saturday. Where do you go to collect on that bet? Opposition
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  to gambling is common among religious organizations. The United Methodist Church refers
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  to it as a menace to society. The Southern Baptist Convention, the
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  largest Protestant denomination in America, has condemned gambling several times, and in
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  twenty twenty five declared sports gambling inconsistent with biblical principle. Gambling is
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  forbidden in Islam and considered a vice among Hindus. In The
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  Catholic Church, gambling is not in itself a sin, but is considered
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  potentially problematic. For more than a century, Utah kept gambling almost entirely
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  out of the state. There are no casinos, no lotteries, And no
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  racetracks that allow bets. The prohibition is rooted in the ideals of
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  members of the Latter day Saints church who view gambling as a
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  path to selfishness and addiction. The rise of predictive markets, and the
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  legalization of sports gambling, this is just really taking off all across
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  the country, said Matthew Bowman, a professor of religion and history at
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  Claremont Graduate University in California. And a lot of institutions, religious, state,
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  and otherwise, are grappling with this problem. Saturday's speech comes as the
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  church’s has been wading into political issues under President Dallan Oaks, a
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  former Utah Supreme Court justice who became the faith's top leaders last
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  October. Church leaders this year have opposed state ballot measures that would
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  establish rights to abortion in Idaho and Nevada. Yet the institution's approach
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  to political issues, using public statements and behind the scenes lobbying to
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  convey its message, has become more calculated in recent years, Bowman said.
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  The shift followed public blowback to the church's stance against California's Proposition
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  eight, a two thousand eight ballot measure that sought to ban gay
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  marriage. In that case, Bowman said church leaders encouraged its members to
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  get directly involved. Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Holly Meyer contributed to
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  this story from Nashville, Tennessee.