Tuesday, August 31, 2004

The Brits will Bet on Anything - so say the Yanks

Is Anything Sacred Here? Well, That's Worth a Wager

Novelty betting, mostly a low-stakes venture, has soared in Britain and Ireland in the past five years, attracting a swath of new, casual gamblers, some of them women, who hope to make money off their conviction that "Sex and the City" will hold a reunion by 2005 or that Mr. Beckham will dump his wife by year's end.

The New York Times report on the increase in 'novelty bets' that us Brits will bet on - everything from John Motson's first cliche in his commentary to whether JK Rowling will kill off Harry Potter

Paddy Power states: "We're willing to take bets on anything, even two flies climbing a wall or the price of oil this Friday."

And Graham Sharpe of Hills notes with an air of typical understated (and amusing) patriotism: "There aren't many countries you can do this in ...We don't lead the world in much, but in this, we do.''

The bets mentioned in the article include:
- It took just 69 seconds for John Motson, to utter one of his notorious clichés - "these are nervous moments" - during the start of the England vs. Portugal match back in July.
- how many sips of water the chancellor will take during his budget speech, who will play the next James Bond, and will J. K. Rowling, the author, kill off Harry Potter.
- which character from "The Simpsons" will come out of the closet in January
- who will replace Pope John Paul II
- a woman who bet that her sister, Anne Redhead, a redhead, would give birth to a redhead.

But Paddy Power thankfully looks at this with a bit more realism: "Gambling is possibly too strong a word here.."It's having a laugh"

That it is - but I doubt they would have expected betting on Big Brother or Pop Idol would be such the money spinner its turned out to be

posted by jo @ 2:20 PM   0 comments

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