Anti-gambling activist wins big in internet cafe sweepstake

A Chicago anti-online gambling activist, Kathy Gilroy (68) has rationalised internet cafe sweepstake betting as something different to gambling after winning $25,000 playing a sweepstakes game at a gambling cafe.

“It’s the gambling I oppose,” Gilroy told local reporters questioning her apparent hypocrisy, “not the sweepstakes.”

Gilroy pointed out that she did not use her own money to gamble, and that she has previously entered sweepstakes because “they’re made available free of charge under state law.”

Her previous successes on sweepstakes have included prizes of electronic equipment and trips to the Bahamas and California.

She said that although she had to “think twice” before accepting the $25,000 current win, she ultimately decided that the cash comes from the profits of the gambling cafe’s owner and took it after a pastor friend suggested to her that it was God’s reward for her voluntary work against gambling.

Gilroy pointed to her record as an anti-gambling activist, which has included involvement in actions that included the shuttering of a $1.6 million Queen of Hearts raffle put on by the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in rural Morris, Illinois, this year until the raffle was properly licensed.

The commander of the Illinois Veterans, Jerry Zeborowski commented on the irony of an anti-gambling activist entering a sweepstake, saying “That’s a little hypocrisy there, don’t you think?”

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