Viruses and Gambling
Good Morning and Welcome to this week’s Gospel and Culture update, by Alan Vink
Monday 17th August, 2020
Trillions of Viruses
In April this year the National Geographic published an excellent article entitled “There are more viruses than stars in the universe. Why do only some infect us?”
It's a 6 -10 minute read about the world of viruses and other pathogens that non-science people like me can understand. Here is an excerpt:-
“An estimated 10 nonillion (10 to the 31st power) individual viruses exist on our planet—enough to assign one to every star in the universe 100 million times over.
Viruses infiltrate every aspect of our natural world, seething in seawater, drifting through the atmosphere, and lurking in miniscule motes of soil. Generally considered non-living entities, these pathogens can only replicate with the help of a host, and they are capable of hijacking organisms from every branch of the tree of life—including a multitude of human cells.
Yet, most of the time, our species manages to live in this virus-filled world relatively free of illness. The reason has less to do with the human body’s resilience to disease than the biological quirks of viruses themselves”.
POV. Reading this article surely reminds us that 1) we are indeed wonderfully made as indeed the whole of the created order is and 2) that we should continue to take the current Coronavirus outbreak very seriously because it is an incredibly virulent (infectious, lethal) strain. Additional reading will inform you that comparing it to the common winter flu is in fact unhelpful.
Gambling in NZ
On Saturday just gone 10 people won $5m each, total prize money of $50m in the Powerball draw. That’s equivalent to a cool $10.00 for every man, women and child OR $1m each for 50 worthy charities.
In 2017/18 New Zealanders spent a total $2.36b (that’s a ‘b’) on gambling.
- $350m on TAB racing and sports betting (up 3.6%)
- $561m on NZ lotteries (up 1.1%)
- $895m on non-casino gaming machines (up 2.9%)
- $578m in casinos (up 1.1%)
POV. That’s $648.00 for every person in NZ OR approximately $2500 per household each year and climbing. If you take out all the children (about a third) and the thousands of households that don’t gamble then the per person spend of those who do gamble is huge. There is only one conclusion you can make from these numbers. Problem Gamblers aside, there is no way this level of spending comes from household discretionary income. The budget advisory people will tell you that most of this spend (on gambling) comes from much needed household income that is needed for basics and essentials. Further, I have noticed that more Christians have a ‘flutter’ from time to time than in previous years and heaps of Christian organisations apply and receive Grants from Lotto NZ and other gambling organisations. As far as I am concerned there is ‘still’ a major ethical issue right here and has been since the day gambling was invented.
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Alan Vink is currently the Executive Director for LeadershipWorx. Prior to this role he has been the Executive Director of Willow Creek Association NZ (WillowNZ), a Baptist pastor (23 years), Bible College teacher, and church consultant.
