People like to bet on strange stuff, and people like it bet online. From the
When it comes to online gambling, anything is fair game.
If they’re not playing the odds on the next American Idol or another Britney Spears’ divorce, Internet gamblers may wager on the chances of bird flu reaching the United States or who officials will find first: Jimmy Hoffa or Osama Bin Laden.
“We call it pop culture gambling,” said Christopher Bennett, a spokesman for BetUS.com. “This is quickly becoming the new office lottery pool.”
Gambling is one of the oldest pastimes on the planet – dating back to rolling of knucklebones during prehistoric times and the “casting of lots” in biblical times.
But the Internet has made gambling so easy that people can bet on just about anything at the click of a mouse, from sports to pop culture to politics.
Lawmakers in Washington want to clamp down on online gambling, but industry experts say it’s doubtful that even an act of Congress would be able to keep Americans from seeking out Lady Luck on the Internet.
“It’s definitely popular,” said David Schwartz, who runs the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. “In general, commerce is moving online and gambling is part of that.”
Sports – from football to auto racing to golf – remains one of the most popular subjects among Internet bettors. But gamblers are increasingly interested in wagering on current events and politics as well.
A few months ago, BetUS asked people to bet on whether the world would end on June 6, 2006 – the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of this century.
Thousands bet it would.
You would be a fool to bet ON the world ending, because if you won, you couldn’t collect. I suppose you’d have a few seconds of satisfaction as the planet disintegrated and its atmosphere boiled off into space, but you’d never see a return.
According to astronomers, the world will definitely end in 5 billion years when the sun stops converting hydrogen into helium and starts fusing helium into carbon. It’ll become a red giant and fry Mercury, Venus, and this island Earth along the way. Don’t bother getting any last bets down, because there won’t be anyone to pay you off.
Of course, by that time humanity (if it hasn’t already destroyed itself) should have already mastered interstellar travel, so we might be sitting pretty in another star system by then. On the other hand, given evolution and all that, humanity might not exist as we know it, either. But whatever species is around will probably be betting on something.