A leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints condemned the rapid expansion of sports betting and prediction markets.
D. Todd Christofferson, second counselor in the church’s First Presidency, addressed gambling during the faith’s semiannual general conference Saturday in Salt Lake City.
Christofferson warned that smartphones have made gambling pervasive and singled out sports betting, online casino games, and prediction markets as major vectors of harm.
Prediction Markets Called Gambling
Christofferson rejected prediction markets as “trading” on moral grounds.
“For us as Latter-day Saints, overarching all other concerns is the fact that gambling is morally wrong,” he said during the conference, the Associated Press reported.
He described prediction markets as gambling on the future, noting that these potentially harmful platforms cover subjects ranging far beyond sports.
Christofferson pointed to markets involving religious events, including gambling on the timing of the Second Coming.
The LDS Church’s position puts the influential Utah-based religion firmly on the side of those who view prediction markets as gambling.
Utah Fighting Prediction Markets
Those comments also come amid a legal fight in Utah.
Utah has some of the strictest anti-gambling laws in the country and does not allow any form of gambling.
State lawmakers strengthened Utah’s gambling statutes earlier this year in language designed to cover prediction markets. A federal judge also ruled in August that Utah officials could enforce state gambling laws against the platforms.
The broader dispute over whether prediction markets constitute gambling could reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
Concerns About Young People
Christofferson focused heavily on the effect of online gambling on younger people.
He said teenagers and young adults can lose time that would otherwise go to education, relationships, and so on. At the same time, gambling encourages the pursuit of money without creating anything of value, he said.
The church leader’s criticism adds another prominent institutional voice to mounting opposition to the normalization of online gambling.
Religious organizations have historically been among the strongest opponents of gambling. The United Methodist Church and Southern Baptist Convention have also opposed gambling. Utah’s longstanding prohibition has been closely tied to Mormon teachings.
A historical irony here is that E. Parry Thomas, who was raised Mormon, was sent by Mormon bankers in 1954 from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas to operate a bank that financed the construction of the nation’s casino gambling capital.
