Looking forward to David Schwartz' seminar at the upcoming convention. Dr. Schwartz is the Director of the Center for Gaming Research at UNLV and I've got a lot of questions for the fellow. I was over at his blog, http://www.dieiscast.com/ this evening to get a feel for what he could tell us about this and that when I got to following some posts he'd made about one subject in particular.

Remember when Englebretson's religious auntie all but disowned him when she found out he collected casino ashtrays? We had a discussion about religious views of gambling but it was pretty obvious no one really knew much about the subject. I'm a hard-wired Plymouth Rock puritan myself and my daughter is pursuing a very successful and happy life while finding an anchor in an evangelical church. Neither of us find particular alarm at placing a bet now and then or consider any particular religion as being monolithically anti-gambling.

Anyway, Dr. Schwartz has some coverage of the subject here: http://www.dieiscast.com/category/gambling/gambling-and-religion/ I found two articles pretty interesting, "Solid socio-economic research", a piece taking to task an entity that is really ignorant of religion, a U.S. newspaper and another, "Bible Study".

Not trying to confir any agenda on anyone, this merely relates to a subject that has come up here and that I find interesting. Hope you folks got as many questions for this guy come convention time as I do! See y'all at 0800?