CASINO GAMBLING IN SOUTH CAROLINA

LET YOUR LAWMAKER KNOW WHERE YOU STAND

There is a bill ( H 4176) in the House that would establish a gaming commission to hand out licenses for casinos.  According to the Post and Courier and other outlets, a major developer in South Carolina has targeted the former site of the Santee Outlet Mall in Orangeburg Country as a location for a $1billion casino.  The project is being touted as a resort that would include a hotel, a spa, restaurants, and retail spaces all anchored and funded by the state’s first casino.  If this bill makes it through the House and Senate and is signed into law by the Governor, it will not be the last casino.  This legislation would allow the casino in Santee and open the door for more casinos across the state.

I Timothy 6:9-10 says, “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs”(ESV).

Gambling is additive.  Clinical research has revealed sound evidence that gambling activates the brain’s reward system in much the same way a drug does.  Luke Clark, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia writes, “Across many studies, the same brain areas come up time and time again…. the ventral striatum and the prefrontal cortex.”  Jon Grant, who studies addiction at the University of Chicago describes the process people who become addicted to gambling go through.  Grant writes, “”People will get inured to the high of gambling at a certain point and need to gamble with bigger bets and riskier betting options. “When people try to stop, they go through withdrawal, with insomnia, agitation, irritability, and a feeling of being ill at ease, similar to what we see in some substance abuse disorders.”

The argument being made in favor of casino gambling talks about the financial benefit casino gambling will bring to impoverished areas of the state.  Proponents of casino gambling present casinos as a no-taxpayer-money solution generating revenue for all involved.  But virtue never rises from vice.  The addiction, corruption, crime, and human suffering that will accompany casinos far outweigh any supposed financial benefit. 

South Carolina Baptists have passed 20 resolutions pointing out the dangers of gambling and encouraging our lawmakers to refuse to expand it.  The SBC has passed 14 resolutions against gambling.  Attached with this alert is a white paper published by the ERLC staff that focuses on online gambling (specifically sports betting) but the theological applications and sociological dangers of gambling addiction apply to all forms of gambling.  I have also attached my March column from the Baptist Courier.  It also focuses on sports betting but points out the danger of addiction and highlights reports from the Wall Street Journal and 60 Minutes. 

You can read a copy of the bill here:  H 4176. 

Please take action right away!  Contact your House member and tell them where you stand on casino gambling.  You can find your SC House member and contact them here: www.scstathouse.gov. 

He must increase, I must decrease,

Dr. Tony Beam

Policy Consultant

SCBaptist

Information for statements about the link between gambling and addiction can be found here: https://www.brainfacts.org/diseases-and-disorders/addiction/2015/gambling-addiction-and-the-brain

https://www.scbaptist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Online-betting.pdf

https://www.scbaptist.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/ERL5110_GamblingWhitePaper_012225-1.pdf