Gambling with Our Treasure

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For those few Americans who might not know by now, the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Tampa Bay Rays four games to one to win the 2026 World Series on Wednesday, October 28. Even though I am not a die-hard Brewers fan, I especially enjoyed seeing young men from my home state of Mississippi participate in this historic win.

It was also the first time the Brewers won the World Series. Their victory also marked the official end of this year’s MLB season. That ending is a big deal in the Lucius household.

Every year, from March through October, my husband and I enjoy sitting down one or two nights each week to watch televised MLB baseball games together. We share a love for baseball and the Atlanta Braves. So, not watching Major League Baseball for the next five months is sad.

But I am not sad that this particular World Series is over. In fact, I am extremely glad that all the World Series commercials are over and done – especially actress Sydney Sweeney’s advertisement for the Novig sports prediction and trading app.

Without going into any graphic details, this commercial took us by complete surprise the first time it came on during the playoff series. After that initial shock, we simply turned it off as quickly as possible during each subsequent airing.

Now, don’t get me started on how wrong it is to advertise gambling during one of our nation’s ultimate family sporting events. Just stop and think about it. Baseball is labeled as America’s national pastime, so the thought of promoting gambling via a primetime World Series advertising campaign – while entire families are viewing – is entirely unsuitable.

Well … “unsuitable” does not even come close to describing Sydney Sweeney’s advertisement. It is totally pornographic, and that is all I’m saying about it.

Honestly though, it’s no wonder Novig showed a total disregard for the American family. With an average of 11 million homes tuned in nightly to this year’s five-game World Series, Novig’s repugnant advertising campaign was a monetary boon for this gambling brokerage company.

If even a small percentage of primetime viewers downloaded and tried its “betting” app, Novig raked in a treasure trove of money. Plus, as a strategic partner and equity holder in Novig, Sydney Sweeney also profited greatly from the ad.

Despite that troubling thought, another aspect of this advertising campaign troubled me even more deeply than the disgustingly inappropriate nature of repeatedly airing and profiting from a pornographic gambling commercial while millions of American families were watching. Ironically, this deeper issue was also about a storehouse of treasure.

As a mother and grandmother, I was appalled at the Novig commercial; that’s for sure. But as I have pondered this advertisement over the past few days, my heart hurts for such a beautiful young woman as Sydney Sweeney. It pains me to think that she has no idea of her true value and worth to God.

Now, I’m not stupid. I realize that Sydney Sweeney’s net worth was estimated earlier this year to be around $40 million and growing. So, according to the world’s standards, she is very, very rich, especially compared to the median American household net worth of $215,916.

But I also know that none of her earthly treasures (or mine, for that matter) will guarantee entrance to heaven. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 fully explains the truth of eternity's upside-down economy. As Christians, we are gratefully aware that Jesus paid the ultimate price for our salvation on the cross of Calvary. Without Him, we are all spiritually bankrupt and lost, doomed to an eternity in hell.

Truly, Jesus is the real treasure, and for me and for every other Christian on earth, that is the best news of all. As Luke 12:34 so beautifully puts it, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

And that scriptural truth highlights the saddest irony of all in this Novig commercial catastrophe.

The reality is that Sydney Sweeney and so many other modern young women sell themselves so painfully short of who they were meant to be in Christ. They have yet to understand their true value to the God who made them – the very same God who willingly gave His only Son to die in their place.

Even before that miraculous and priceless transaction took place on Calvary, Psalm 139 eloquently explained our value as a “skillfully wrought” work of God, “fearfully and wonderfully made” from conception onward. He planned us; He made us; He loves us; and in Him alone, we find our worth.

The entire concept of salvation in Christ is unfathomable, for certain. No wonder the enemy of our souls does not want us to know that He is our treasure – or to find our treasured place in Him. But there Jesus stands, arms open wide, waiting to freely welcome each of us into that place of impossibly immeasurable love.

Though freely given through the blood of Jesus Christ, we are plainly charged in 2 Timothy 1:14 to “Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to us.”

So I would be remiss not to turn off the television during sad commercials such as that produced by Sydney Sweeney and Novig. But I would be even more remiss not to pray for her with the same fervency that I pray for my own granddaughters to find their true worth in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Please join me in that prayer. And while we’re at it, let’s bend our knees and truly pray for this entire generation of young women to not only know Jesus as Savior, but to serve Him wholeheartedly.

After all, we should not gamble with a national treasure as valuable as our young women.

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