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Kansas recently enacted legislation to become the first state to have state-owned casinos. The state Lottery Commission is considering developers to build and operate four state-run casinos — in part to keep money from flowing to casinos in neighboring Oklahoma and Missouri.

The Kansas casinos are projected to rake in $200 million a year in revenue, said Sally Lunsford, spokeswoman for the Kansas commission.

About 2 percent of the take will go to developing programs for problem gambling, she said.

Money, she said, has to come from somewhere. "There's not a whole heck of a lot of people who are raising their hands, saying, `Please, raise my taxes!'" she said.

Still, whether or not her voice is being heard, Barbara Knickelbein is not stopping her fight against gambling, even though her organization, No Casinos Maryland, changed its name from Religious Communities United in Opposition to Casino-Style Gambling, as it was known when it launched in 1995.

A voter referendum that would put 15,000 slot machines at various racetracks and other locations will be on the Maryland ballot in November. The projected $600 million that the slots would produce would be unsteady, and an unfair tax on the poor, Knickelbein said.

The organization focuses its opposition on morality or economics, depending on the audience, she said, but religious groups have a stake in the outcome.

"It's the churches who are going to have to pick up the pieces," she said, "when families are torn apart by gambling."

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Earlier Christianity Today articles on gambling include:

Coalition Breaking | Christian lobbyists in Alabama fight over track betting. (July 25, 2007)

Addiction a Click Away | Internet gambling is hooking shut-ins, including Christians. (March 25, 2003)

Weblog: Salvation Army Rejects $100,000 From Lottery Winner | Last week, the winner of the $314 million Powerball lottery promised to tithe his winnings, rekindling the debate over whether churches should accept gambling money. (Jan. 02, 2003)

Fighting Chance | Bible-belt churches gear up for lottery battles in Tennessee and North Carolina. (March 25, 2002)

Weblog: No Ban on Internet Gambling | Ban on Internet gambling fails in U.S. House of Representatives (July 19, 2000)

Beating the Odds | Christians in two states defeat gambling by exposing its harmful effects on the poor. (Jan. 10, 2000)

Gambling Panel Urges Moratorium | By a 5-to-4 vote, the panel, after two years of study, suggests "some policymakers at all levels may wish to impose an explicit moratorium on gambling expansion, while awaiting further research and assessment." (June 14, 1999)

Gambling Away the Golden Years | Casinos are seducing an alarming number of seniors. Where is the church? (May 24, 1999)

Gambling with the Enemy | Instead of folding, the church should be upping the ante (May 18, 1998)

None Dare Call It Sin | How Mississippi's Bible Belt succumbed so quickly and so completely to the gambling industry. (May 18, 1998)

Spurning Lady Luck | Churches reject funds tainted by gambling. (Oct. 26, 1998)

Nominations Delayed | Will Gambling Study Be Biased? (January 6, 1997)

Voters Reject Betting Measures | Gambling ballot measures failed in five statewide initiatives during November's election. Gambling forces won only in Arizona, where voters approved a plan to allow five more Indian casinos, and in Michigan, where three casinos won approval in Detroit. (December 9, 1996)

Casino Backlash Gains Momentum (Apr. 8, 1996)

Christians Battle Gambling | Will Christians reclaim the high ground in a battle to fight America's 'recreational pastime'? (Nov. 14, 1994)

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March (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 52