In landing here, they therefore brought their gambling interest with them, and it took root in the new nation. When Columbus came over here and discovered America, his little boats were filled with sailors who gambled away much of their time crossing the Atlantic by playing dice and playing cards. But gambling, in fact, played a very prominent role in early American history. We like to look back at the foundations of our country and assume that everything is as it ought to have been in the early Christian beginnings of America. Lest you think that’s something new, it isn’t. America is fast becoming a land of gamblers, and not only legal gambling, but illegal gambling makes the actual effect and impact of this thing almost incalculable. The best statistics indicate that there are about 10 million compulsive gamblers – and that’s more than the number of alcoholics.
We do know that there is about $500 billion wagered every year legally in America, and estimates up to $1 trillion totally when you add the illegal gambling. Estimates of the total amount wagered are very difficult to come to it. The lottery has become the number one American fantasy. It is the new invisible addiction assaulting millions of people in our country and around the world. And I don’t very often do this, but I want to share with you something of the scene and how gambling fits into our culture today so that we have some grasp of the importance of understanding what the Word of God has to say which can be applied to this very, very important issue.Īmerica is on a gambling binge. This may sound a little more like a 20/20 television documentary than a sermon.
I feel a little bit more like an investigative reporter than a Bible teacher this morning. Stone said he’s no longer being paid by Trump, but he is still a supporter and ally, and Stone’s former lobbying partner, Paul Manafort, is now running Trump’s presidential campaign.Well, as you know, this morning we’re going to address the subject of gambling, the seductive dream. In addition to the fines, Trump agreed to pay more than $30,000 to run a statement in Albany-area news outlets: “Donald Trump, Roger Stone and Thomas Hunter … apologize if anyone was misled concerning the production and funding of the lobbying effort.” They didn’t say they were sorry for the ads’ content.
“Donald is always deeply suspicious of big lawyer fees,” Stone said in the interview. Trump agreed to a settlement to end the commission’s inquiry over whether the campaign violated New York’s laws requiring lobbying disclosure. “I understood Roger Stone’s idea that the Institute was a more credible voice than a casino company’s,” Trump wrote. In written answers to the commission’s questions, Trump confirmed that he approved more than $1.5 million in spending for an anti-Mohawk lawsuit, investigation and public opinion campaign. It was unusual not only for how deeply involved he was, but for the sharp tone of the attacks and the elaborate attempt to conceal his role. Hundreds of pages of records from a New York agency’s investigation into the ad campaign, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, reveal new details about Trump’s covert fight against the tribe. As he prepares to accept the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s convention in July, some of the more combative and controversial episodes in his long career, including the anti-Mohawk campaign, are coming under renewed scrutiny. Trump has pointed to his experience in business and real estate as the main argument for why he should be president. The ad ran in Catskills newspapers, credited to the institute. “Roger – This could be good!” Trump scrawled across one ad that included a picture of hypodermic needles and lines of powder meant to depict cocaine, underneath the headline: “Drug Dealing at Monticello?,” the name of the track. When Stone hired private investigators to dig up dirt on the Mohawks, Trump secretly paid the bills. The institute was the brainchild of Trump’s longtime lobbyist and consultant, Roger Stone, and Trump himself was hands-on - not just paying the bills, but signing off on ad copy or radio scripts depicting the tribe as violent criminals and drug dealers.
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