Gamblers can take any event, no matter how solemn or tragic, and turn it to betting purposes. So it’s really no surprise to learn that some bookies are taking action on who the next pope will be, or that Italians are betting lottery numbers associated with John Paul II.
First, the lottery story, from The Telegraph:
Grief or no grief, many Italian lottery addicts are looking to the late Pope John Paul for their lucky number.
Across the Roman Catholic country, punters are rushing to lotto sellers and gambling on numbers linked to the Polish Pontiff in the belief those digits are now lucky, a betting news agency said.
�Since this morning there are many, many bets on the numbers of the Pope,� the agency, AGICOS, said.
The most popular numbers are 21 and 37, corresponding to the time of death (21:37 local), the number 2 after the day of the Pope’s death on April 2, and 84, his age at death.
Italians have long been dedicated gamblers and in 2004 they spent 23 billion euros ($30 billion) on betting games, up 38 per cent from 2003.
But that’s not all. When people line up to bet on who wins stupid reality TV shows, do you really think that they’re going to let an event of untold significance–the elevation of a man to the bishopric of Rome–go without a bet or two? From Yahoo!:
An Italian and a Nigerian cardinal are tied as Irish bookmakers’ favorites to succeed Pope John Paul II.
More than 5,000 people have placed bets on who will be the next pope with Paddy Power PLC, Ireland’s largest bookmaking chain.
The early favorites are Dionigi Tettamanzi of Italy and Francis Arinze of Nigeria, both listed on 11-4 odds. That means a winning $4 bet would pay out $15.
Betting resumed Monday in shops and on the Internet on the question, “Who will be the next pope?” The firm had suspended betting for one day Sunday out of respect to John Paul, who died Saturday.
The biggest bet so far, $1,300, has been on Tettamanzi. The company said most bets are for much smaller amounts.
Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras is third with 9-2 odds, while Joseph Ratzinger of Germany and Claudio Hummes of Brazil both follow with odds of 7-1.
I know that the Roman Catholic church has traditionally been more tolerant of gambling that certain Protestant denominations or Islam, but this is really pushing it.