Maysir

Maysir is first mentioned in Surah Al-Baqarah 2:219, which acknowledges "great sin, and some benefit for people" in it, but states "their sin is greater than their benefit," an early, cautionary tone. The definitive prohibition comes in Surah Al-Ma'idah 5:90-91, which groups khamr (intoxicants), maysir (gambling), idol sacrifice, and divining arrows together as "abominations of Satan's doing," commanding believers to avoid them entirely. Scholars read this progression, an initial caution followed by an absolute ban, as mirroring the phased approach also used for riba.

Surah Al-Ma'idah 5:91 gives the reasoning directly: gambling breeds enmity and hatred between people and diverts them from remembrance of Allah and from prayer. Classical commentators such as Ibn Kathir and Al-Qurtubi add an economic dimension: gambling transfers wealth without any underlying productive exchange. One side's win is mechanically the other side's loss, unlike ordinary trade, where both parties can genuinely benefit from a transaction.

This is why casino operators, sports-betting platforms, and lottery businesses are excluded outright under the business-activity screen, the first tier of Shariah stock screening, regardless of how clean their balance sheet otherwise looks. Even a modest share of a company's core revenue derived from gambling operations typically disqualifies it. This is treated as a business-activity failure rather than a financial-ratio issue, meaning there is generally no threshold to purify around; the standard guidance is to avoid the stock rather than hold and purify it.

Investing in a real company's shares is not maysir. Both an investor's gain and loss stem from the company's actual business performance, a real economic outcome tied to production, sales, and management decisions, not a pure chance draw with no underlying activity. The distinction that matters is whether an activity is a zero-sum wager on an arbitrary outcome (maysir) or a stake in a real, productive enterprise where the outcome is uncertain in advance but grounded in genuine economic activity (permissible).