Like restaurants, bars, night clubs and so many other public places that closed down due to the covid-19 pandemic, so did the casino’s. And in most countries they stayed closed for multiple months, starting around March. Footage of the Las Vegas strip being completely empty was a very strange sight that was shown on a lot of news feeds. You can imagine how financially disastrous it is for the casino’s on the strip, that rake in billions of dollars a year, to be completely closed to the public. In the meantime, people that like to gamble were in a predicament during those months as well, with nowhere to go. And while it’s illegal in some places, online gambling offers the opportunity to gamble from the comfort of your own home to those that couldn’t wait for the casino’s to open back up.

Whether it’s online poker or sports betting, due to its convenience, online gambling has gained in popularity and has gotten a larger and larger online presence, fuelled even more by the pandemic. If we take the U.S. as an example, gambling is regulated through state law, which means that each state has their own rules regarding online gambling. Only four states currently allow online table games like blackjack, and eighteen states allow sports betting. Sports betting however, has only been legal in these states for less than two years, and in these years new bookmaking companies like DrafKings (whose share value doubled since they were listed in April) and Fanduel have gained enormous popularity.

The online sports betting market doubled from 6.5 billion dollars in 2018, to 13 billion dollars in 2019 and the growth rate isn’t predicted to come to a halt anytime soon. It’s growing so rapidly that in the recent months, lots of legalization bills for online gambling are being pushed by state lawmakers. The tax benefits from online gambling, estimated at a whopping 195 million dollars for the state of California alone for example, could make up for a big part of tax income lost because of the pandemic.

With the convenience of online gambling, and the trend of legalization currently taking place, there is a big chance that the online gambling market will keep growing rapidly. This however, raises concerns with addiction prevention watchdogs. Since gambling is now easily accessible anytime of the day, wherever you are, it’s easier for people to get addicted, or for clean addicts to relapse. This is only worsened by the pandemic, with online search interest into online casino’s reaching an all-time high last May in the UK for example.

There’s a lot of convenience, but also risk of addiction involved for people who wouldn’t normally go to a casino, but like the idea of betting some money online. Let me know what you think of this trend, and if you believe it should be regulated more strictly to reduce the chance of addiction.

References

Bruning, C. (2020). Why Online Gambling Stocks Will Surge in 2021. [online] www.nasdaq.com. Available at: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/why-online-gambling-stocks-will-surge-in-2021-2020-09-09

Homer, A. (2020). Coronavirus: Gambling addiction treatments paused as staff redeployed. [online] BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-53351411

‌The Economist. (2020). Covid-19 has driven American gamblers online. [online] Available at: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/06/07/covid-19-has-driven-american-gamblers-online.

The 25^th of September 2000 was a very special day for the country of Australia. It was the day that Cathy Freeman became the first Aboriginal person to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event, at the Sydney Olympics no less. Exactly twenty years later, on the 25^th of September 2020, this moment was relived in a spectacular manner. In an initiative launched by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) together with the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage (OFCH), the legendary race was projected onto the Sydney Opera House for the world to see. What makes this event even more special however, is the fact that the data of the footage was preserved on a brand new data storage technology: Synthetic DNA.

According to the CEO of the NFSA, Jan Müller, Cathy Freeman’s race is seen as a part of Australia’s DNA, ideal to be preserved in actual DNA and become Australia’s first usage of the new technology. The DNA copy of the race is currently stored in a vial the size of a AAA battery. Theoretically though, the entire NFSA archive could fit six times over in synthetic DNA the size of a matchstick.

With the amount of data being collected by companies growing exponentially, current data storing solutions may not be sufficient in the near future. Data storage centers already take up a lot of space and consume huge amounts of energy. This creates a problem regarding the costs of running such data storage centers and the environmental effects the energy consumption causes. This is where DNA data storage comes in as a possible solution.

While digital information is stored using 0’s and 1’s, DNA information is stored using four nucleotides (A, T, G and C). The order of these nucleotides determines the information that the DNA contains. This makes for a more efficient way of coding information since there’s four elements instead of two. Scientists have already managed to record information into DNA with a storage density of about 10¹⁹ bits per cubic centimeter. At this density, all of the world’s current storage needs for a year could be met by a cube of DNA that’s smaller than a cubic meter. Add the fact that DNA is incredibly stable and the data is easily written, read and copied and you may have a viable solution for the data storage problem.

Although it will probably take a while before economies of scale are great enough to make day to day use of DNA data storage economically viable, the implications are very impressive and it’s certainly possible that DNA data storage options will run the future.

References

‌Dong, Y., Sun, F., Ping, Z., Ouyang, Q. and Qian, L. (2020). DNA storage: research landscape and future prospects. National Science Review, [online] 7(6), pp.1092–1107. Available at: https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/7/6/1092/5711038

Gonzalez, M. (2020). NFSA + DNA. [online] NFSA. Available at: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/nfsa-dna

Morris, L. (2020). In our DNA: Cathy Freeman’s Olympic win projected onto Opera House. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/in-our-dna-cathy-freeman-s-olympic-win-projected-onto-opera-house-20200922-p55xzx.html

‌‌Sang Yup Lee (2019). DNA Data Storage Is Closer Than You Think. [online] Scientific American. Available at: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dna-data-storage-is-closer-than-you-think/