News events a good bet
WEB SITES: You can wager on Brangelina's future and how many hurricanes will hit.
05:51 PM PDT on Tuesday, September 12, 2006
By JENNY DEAM
The Denver Post
Like to speculate on the news? There's a place for people like you.
Online gambling sites now offer lucrative betting lines on news stories -- everything from whether John Mark Karr's confession was fake, to how long the power outages would last this summer in Queens, N.Y., and St. Louis, to how many Category 3 hurricanes will hit the U.S. this year.
"Betting on baseball gets boring. You're looking for a little action every now and then. Betting on the hurricanes, I couldn't resist that," Ken Moore, a Quincy, Mass., graphic designer said.
"It just goes to show people will gamble on anything and everything," says Chris Costigan, president of Gambling911 .com, a Miami-based Web site that follows online gambling.
The betting line on Karr's confession opened as even just after his arrest. As days passed, however, the odds lengthened with more people betting he had not killed JonBenet Ramsey.
On gambling Web sites, people can place bets on which two characters will be killed off in the final Harry Potter book.
The betting line closed just before the news conference where Boulder, Colo., District Attorney Mary Lacy announced there would be no charges.
Wagering on news stories is illegal, as is all online betting, said Kristen Holtzman, communications director for the Colorado attorney general's office. Enforcement, however, is difficult at best.
There are about a half-dozen online gambling sites that offer betting lines on news stories. They are all outside U.S. borders. If someone wants to bet on whether Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will stay together or which two characters will be killed off in the final Harry Potter book they simply open an online account and deposit a minimum of $50, explains David Johnson, a former professional Las Vegas gambler who now runs Wager Web.com from Costa Rica.
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