People drink, dance, smoke, swear, and live immoral lives, too, just for fun. It's a very short season, though, and the hell that follows makes it a poor deal all around. But, really, I wonder sometimes if people do gamble just for fun. Gambling is really wanting something that we have no right to have, and without laboring for it. The gambler wants to reap without sowing.
Covetousness is the basic reason for gambling.
In certain areas, this is a common question. By the same reasoning, dueling stands in relationship to murder as gambling does to stealing. Just because a man is willing to risk his life in an encounter does not justify the taking of that life. The fact that a person is willing to risk the loss of his property does not justify him in taking the property of another without paying the equivalent. We are to keep out of our thoughts those things that are dishonorable and are not of good report.