LDS leader condemns gambling and prediction markets as ‘morally wrong’

D. Todd Christofferson, second counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, condemned gambling as “morally wrong” in an Oct. 3 General Conference address that explicitly included online sports betting and prediction markets.

He argued that smartphones had changed gambling from an occasional activity involving a casino, racetrack or lottery kiosk into one available continuously, privately and almost anywhere. The church’s Newsroom said his address focused on the resulting pervasiveness of gambling and its disproportionate effects on youth and young adults.

Christofferson described mobile access as a route by which occasional entertainment can become repeated or compulsive behaviour, displacing saving, increasing debt and imposing family and social costs. “Gambling is built on the desire to obtain something for nothing,” he said, adding that its gains come at others’ expense.

He said global gambling-industry revenue reached an estimated $758 billion in 2025. Worldwide surveys covering several years found that 46% of adults, about 2.3 billion people, had gambled in the preceding 12 months, according to The Church News.

The church leader singled out young people’s exposure to betting. He cited figures showing that 36% of U.S. boys aged 11 to 17 had gambled in the preceding year, while the Salt Lake Tribune reported that he also cited a finding that 49% had placed wagers by age 17. He said rampant betting among teenagers and young adults was taking time from studies and relationships.

Prediction markets allow participants to bet on whether events will happen, and in some cases when. Christofferson’s examples included interest rates, elections, sports, wildfires and the timing of the Second Coming. The Church News identified those markets, sports betting and casino-style games as online products driving gambling’s worldwide growth.

Christofferson urged church members not to treat gambling lightly or participate even where it is legal. He contrasted gambling with productive work, saying work supported prosperous, just and equitable societies while gambling, including gambling for fun, moved in the opposite direction. He asked members to use the time and resources preserved by avoiding it to do good.

The address also echoed an established church position. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Christofferson referred to a 1987 speech in which church President Dallin H. Oaks criticized lotteries, parimutuel gambling and other betting.

In Utah, where gambling is constitutionally prohibited, prediction markets are also the subject of a separate legal dispute. A federal judge in August ruled that the state could enforce its anti-gambling laws against Kalshi’s markets, and Kalshi appealed on Aug. 5 while seeking protection from civil or criminal enforcement during the appeal. That case concerns whether such markets constitute gambling under state law, rather than the church’s moral teaching.

A February National Council on Problem Gambling survey of 2,072 U.S. adults found that 30% viewed prediction markets as most similar to gambling, compared with 24% who saw them as financial forecasting and 18% as investing. The survey also found that 79% regarded gambling addiction as at least as serious as alcohol or drug addiction.