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What's up with the Mormon Church and gambling?
Mormons are supposed to be against all vice, including premarital sex, smoking, drinking, drugs and even cursing.
And, of course, gambling is on that list.
But, in recent weeks, some of the most famous Mormons in the U.S. have expressed their love and affinity for gambling.
And now it has been revealed that one of the most infamous Mormons in the country is a true devotee of gambling who made a living at it!
At a recent debate among the Republican presidential candidates, former Massachusetts Governor Willard "Mitt" Romney, a self-described devout Mormon, disagreed with Texas Governor Rick Perry on a point of fact, and offered to bet him $10,000 on who was correct.
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Weeks earlier, U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid, also a self-described devout Mormon, announced he would support efforts to legalize online gambling in the U.S.
Two high-profile politicians--Mormons who are supposed to be against gambling in all forms--turn out not to be.
So much for Mormon doctrine.
But now it is learned that the professional poker player who murdered his parents in 2008 and was recently convicted of the crimes not only is a Mormon, he attended Brigham Young University, a Mormon enclave for super-devout Mormons who must live under a strict code of conduct or face expulsion!
On Saturday night on the CBS televison show "48 Hours," the full hour was devoted to the case of Ernest Scherer III, a professional poker player who had earned over a million dollars in his career playing tournament poker and who had played in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
Scherer murdered his wealthy parents in Pleasanton, California, after he got in heavy debt, in an effort to get his inheritance early.
After a lengthy investigation by police, he was arrested and charged with the twin killings, tried and convicted, and now is in prison.
During a look-back on his life, "48 Hours" revealed that Scherer was a Mormon, as was his mother (the show did not specify whether Scherer's father, also a poker pro, was Mormon too).
In fact, the show revealed, the convicted killer attended BYU in Salt Lake City, Utah, a bastion for Mormon students who agree to abstain from sex, drinking, drugs, cursing, gambling and more while students at the university--or face expulsion!
Scenes of the BYU campus were shown during the program.
So how did someone who at some point was so anti-gambling he chose to go to a college where it's not tolerated--you can't even possess a legal lottery ticket on campus--turn into a professional poker player, not to mention a murderous one?
Was it being deprived of the opportunity to gamble during those formative years that turned Scherer into a degenerate, heavily in debt gambler?
And did that metamorphosis have anything to do with his wacky personal life--according to the show he cheated on his wife with more than 100 different women--and his eventually beating his parents with a baseball bat and then stabbing them to death?
Those questions weren't answered by the show.
Don't worry, though, they eventually should be.
The whole damn story is so wacky that current odds are even money that some cable TV network will make an even wackier TV movie about it.
Only, as they say, in America!
By Tom Somach
Gambling911.com Staff Writer
