As rumors swirl that R&B stars Beyoncé and Jay-Z are expecting a child, online-gaming site SportsInterAction.com is busy taking wagers — for real money — on the gender, name, weight and expected due date of the still unconfirmed baby.
Which raises other questions: Will Tom and *Katie have a boy or a girl? What will Jennifer Garner name her baby? And which Hollywood couple will be next to land in divorce court? No one knows for sure, but now anyone with a hunch can put their money where their mouth is.
Celebrity proposition bets (also known in the business as "props") are the latest rage in the billion-dollar online-betting business — a sort of sports book for the Us Weekly generation.
"People want to be participants, not just observers," says Calvin Ayre, founder and CEO of Bodog.com. "They like betting on celebrities because it makes them feel closer to the stars."
Ayre's site takes between $2,000 and $20,000 of action on each of more than a dozen pop-culture scenarios, from the traditional (Who will win "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart"?) to the absurd (Will Oprah Winfrey convert to Scientology?). But don't expect to put down a deposit on a new mansion based on correctly guessing the sex of your favorite star's kid. Celebrity props don't generally offer the limitless big paydays associated with sports bets.
"We don't let people put too much money down on these types of events," he says. "These are very difficult for our oddsmakers."
A click away, the 1.2 million registered users at BetOnSports.com can try to win a buck speculating whether *Ashlee Simpson will retire from music, Ellen DeGeneres will adopt a child or *Jason Giambi will be suspended for steroid use before Dec. 31, 2006.
"We are appealing to the type of customer that fancies laying the bet [simply] because, to him, $5 is worth telling his friends about it at the bar afterward," says BOS marketing director Will Griffiths.
Wagering on current events has been commonplace in the U.K. since that *nation passed the Street Betting Act in 1960. "In England, they allow bookmakers to take bets on anything that isn't fraudulent," says Bill Thompson, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las *Vegas, and author of "The Encyclopedia of Gambling."
Las Vegas casinos, however, operate under a completely different set of rules. "The gaming board is very strict that you are betting on actual contests," Thompson notes. The one exception: boxing, where winners are sometimes determined by a panel of judges.
That has driven much of the nontraditional wagers to offshore casinos in places like Costa Rica, where BetOn-Sports has 11 full-time employees coming up with new props daily.
"It's one guy's job to keep up with all the gossip," says oddsmaker Justin Marios. "We read all the stories and get all the info we can on the *celebrity. If it is a divorce prop, we know that pretty much every marriage in Hollywood doesn't last. So we go largely by the amount of time they have been together.
"Anything under a year, we are never going to go over 5 to 1 of them divorcing because the probabilities are high that a new marriage will dissolve."
Both Bodog and BetOn-Sports will set odds for any member calling in with a specific prop. But there are boundaries.
During the recent *crisis aboard a disabled JetBlue plane in California, one customer called in to ask for odds it would crash. "We didn't do it," says *Marios.
Still, despite the entertainment *value of trying to guess which couple will marry or break up next, one important question remains: Is this type of wagering legal?
"The World Trade Organization just ruled that online wagering is legal," says Ayres, "so it is pretty cut-and-dried internationally. It is only a gray area inside the United States. Our lawyers say that, until a time a court of competent jurisdiction actually rules on it, it is not illegal."
Thompson agrees. Sort of. "If this was sports it would be illegal," he says. "It is an interesting question and it is not a slam dunk either way."
That means for now, all bets are on.
Which raises other questions: Will Tom and *Katie have a boy or a girl? What will Jennifer Garner name her baby? And which Hollywood couple will be next to land in divorce court? No one knows for sure, but now anyone with a hunch can put their money where their mouth is.
Celebrity proposition bets (also known in the business as "props") are the latest rage in the billion-dollar online-betting business — a sort of sports book for the Us Weekly generation.
"People want to be participants, not just observers," says Calvin Ayre, founder and CEO of Bodog.com. "They like betting on celebrities because it makes them feel closer to the stars."
Ayre's site takes between $2,000 and $20,000 of action on each of more than a dozen pop-culture scenarios, from the traditional (Who will win "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart"?) to the absurd (Will Oprah Winfrey convert to Scientology?). But don't expect to put down a deposit on a new mansion based on correctly guessing the sex of your favorite star's kid. Celebrity props don't generally offer the limitless big paydays associated with sports bets.
"We don't let people put too much money down on these types of events," he says. "These are very difficult for our oddsmakers."
A click away, the 1.2 million registered users at BetOnSports.com can try to win a buck speculating whether *Ashlee Simpson will retire from music, Ellen DeGeneres will adopt a child or *Jason Giambi will be suspended for steroid use before Dec. 31, 2006.
"We are appealing to the type of customer that fancies laying the bet [simply] because, to him, $5 is worth telling his friends about it at the bar afterward," says BOS marketing director Will Griffiths.
Wagering on current events has been commonplace in the U.K. since that *nation passed the Street Betting Act in 1960. "In England, they allow bookmakers to take bets on anything that isn't fraudulent," says Bill Thompson, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las *Vegas, and author of "The Encyclopedia of Gambling."
Las Vegas casinos, however, operate under a completely different set of rules. "The gaming board is very strict that you are betting on actual contests," Thompson notes. The one exception: boxing, where winners are sometimes determined by a panel of judges.
That has driven much of the nontraditional wagers to offshore casinos in places like Costa Rica, where BetOn-Sports has 11 full-time employees coming up with new props daily.
"It's one guy's job to keep up with all the gossip," says oddsmaker Justin Marios. "We read all the stories and get all the info we can on the *celebrity. If it is a divorce prop, we know that pretty much every marriage in Hollywood doesn't last. So we go largely by the amount of time they have been together.
"Anything under a year, we are never going to go over 5 to 1 of them divorcing because the probabilities are high that a new marriage will dissolve."
Both Bodog and BetOn-Sports will set odds for any member calling in with a specific prop. But there are boundaries.
During the recent *crisis aboard a disabled JetBlue plane in California, one customer called in to ask for odds it would crash. "We didn't do it," says *Marios.
Still, despite the entertainment *value of trying to guess which couple will marry or break up next, one important question remains: Is this type of wagering legal?
"The World Trade Organization just ruled that online wagering is legal," says Ayres, "so it is pretty cut-and-dried internationally. It is only a gray area inside the United States. Our lawyers say that, until a time a court of competent jurisdiction actually rules on it, it is not illegal."
Thompson agrees. Sort of. "If this was sports it would be illegal," he says. "It is an interesting question and it is not a slam dunk either way."
That means for now, all bets are on.
