A group of young Christians from Seattle formed the nucleus of an organization that worked to raise money by winning casino games of blackjack. Using a technique called “card counting” they traveled across the country racking up millions in winnings.
“Group members believed what they were doing was consistent with their faith because they felt they were taking money away from an evil enterprise. Further, they did not believe that counting cards was inherently a bad thing; rather, it was merely using math skills in a game of chance. They treated their winnings as income from a job and used it for all manner of expenses.
[…]After years of their own card-counting exploits, the two established a “church team” in 2006, made up largely of friends from church. The goal: to take money from casinos and earn cash for themselves.
“It was a mathematical system,” Crawford said. “I enjoyed the idea of beating the house. It seemed attainable.”
[…]Christianity was not a requirement to join the team, organizers said, but the players came from their core group of friends. About half a dozen non-Christian members joined, Jones said.
“We were trying to evaluate whether they were honest or not,” Jones said. “It just happened to be our network. But faith was an awesome byproduct we got to share.””
More here.
It doesn’t appear that the group was officially connected to any Christian community other than themselves, and there’s no information in the article about how the Christian’s in the group managed to actually “share their faith” as they claimed they were doing to justify their actions.
So, is this beyond the bounds? Does it make a difference that they were winning against a “corporation” rather than against individuals? If they had been more explicit in their evangelism, would it matter?
Or is this just a group of people trying to justify something that they are a little squeamish about?