Stewards Don’t Gamble.

Rate Board for the week of Oct. 5-13: 30-year mortgage 7.40%, 15-year mortgage 6.73%, 10-year Treasury 5.24%, average high-yield savings 3.75%.

I know firsthand what it feels like to fund someone’s gambling addiction.

CNBC reported this week that sports betting is increasingly the norm for Gen Z. A Betterment survey found 66% of Gen Z investors bet on sports. 52% moved money meant for investing into betting, and 26% call betting part of their long-term financial plan. The Bank of America Institute found Gen Z is twice as likely as others to see betting as a type of investment. One clinician told CNBC it’s now more unusual for a young person not to have a betting or prediction-market account.

Can I be real with you?

I’m not going to dress this up: I get why betting is tempting; rates are high, houses feel out of reach, and the slow way just feels too slow. I knew this before TIYL, but now more than ever after starting it, as the time it takes to realize a single dollar can happen in a day if you build yourself a job, but it will take much longer than that when you’re building an engine that will fund the lives of others.

But I built a treasury management department, so I know a little thing about money, and one of those things is that you can’t build an empire overnight, and an empire that becomes a money engine works the same way.

Here’s 3 reasons why betting isn’t investing:

1. There’s no asset. Investing buys something that’s gains can be realized more than once: think a business, a property, a share of one; assets can be purchased today, sold to produce income tomorrow, and continue to provide knowledge of the experience that will only enhance your ability to make sound decisions in the future. A bet however, buys a ticket, realizes a gain (potentially), and leaves you with nothing other than the thought that if you got lucky once, it can probably happen again. .
2. The house has the edge. At standard odds you risk $110 to win $100, so you have to win 52.4% of your bets just to break even. The house doesn’t need to be right, it just needs you to keep playing.
3. Your scoreboard lies. Like the majority of finance bros golf handicaps, people only tell you what they won or how well they did once but continue to treat it like it’s their norm, without ever telling you about the $800 they lost last month.

And for young stewards, frequent bettors lose time at work and in school, and even see a hit to their academics.

“Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.” (Proverbs 13:11, ESV)

“The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” (Psalm 24:1, ESV)

Scripture doesn’t list sportsbooks, and it doesn’t have to. Proverbs 13:11 names the pattern that fast money shrinks, slow money grows. You can’t gamble with what you’re managing and call it faithful.

I was recently reading Psalm 62 and spent lots of time diving into verse 5. Wait… That’s been my testimony this season. Wait on the Lord.

But the specific piece to waiting that took me by storm this week was honing in on understanding that continued strength, courage, and discipline are all things we obtain when we wait on the Lord.

There’s nothing that says “I couldn’t trust you less Father” then throwing His tools for Kingdom gain away down the drain.

The L.Y.T. Framework

In the L.Y.T. Framework, this would fall into TIYL 5: Investing. Starting with ‘what is investing?’ The framework discusses the three jobs your portion has and none of them involve throwing money into a wish jar and hoping it multiplies 100 fold. If you want upside, TIYL 5 will show you.

This Week’s Moves

1. Count it. Pull your last 90 days of transactions and add up everything you sent to betting and trading apps and write the number down.
2. Pay yourself first. Set an automatic transfer on payday to savings, for this amount since you clearly had the money to throw away and saving must be throwing money away.
3. Remove it. Delete the betting apps. If it’s already costing you more than you can handle, call 1-800-GAMBLER.

Slow money wins. Build the boring way and let it compound.

I love you and I appreciate you.

In Jesus name, May God Bless you and yours.

EJM

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The L.Y.T. Framework: A Christian Guide to Financial Stewardship releases on LinkedIn this month! Comment LYT and I’ll message you. Get it on Amazon today!

Like the new rate board? Let me know what you think about it!

Purely educational content and not to be considered personalized financial advice.