Said to his cousin 'If you beat me I will give you 5 dollars'

4-11-2010 | IslamWeb

Question:

salam alaykum i have a question regarding gambling. me and my cousin enjoy playing video games and one time he said that if i beat him- he would give me 5 dollars. i ended up beating him and he gave it to me willinglly. is this haram?? i am asking because he had no sadness in givin it to me and it is a low amount. we are just trying to have more fun and to up our competitiveness. by no means do we gamble large amounts and he only gives me a dollar to 5 dollars. also, is it okay if for example, my brother said he will give me 10 dollars if i drink a whole bottle of lemonade. this is something we always do to have fun. thank you for your time
Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam ( may Allaah exalt his mention ) is His slave and Messenger.

If the games that you play with your cousin are free from religious prohibitions, like looking at the ‘Awrah and the like, and it does not distract you from Islamic obligations, like the prayer and the like, and it entertains and amuses you, then it is permissible for you to play it but it is not permissible to compete in it, not because it is gambling, but because of the invalidity of the contract in such a case.

Shaykh Zakariyyah Al-Ansaari (from the Shaafi’i School of jurisprudence) said: “If one of the competitors stipulates the money for the winner, i.e. to give it if he was the loser and keep it if he was the winner, or that another person than them stipulates that, then this is not gambling; rather, it is an invalid competition because it is a competition in other than tools of war. However, it is forbidden as well because it is like conducting invalid contracts.”

As regards his (your cousin’s) statement to you "if you drink a whole bottle of lemonade I will give you 10", then this is also a void fun and a void play and it is spending money on useless matters, therefore, it is forbidden in the Sharee’ah.

Allaah Knows best.

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