Web Sites Taking Hurricane Bets

Web Sites Taking Hurricane Bets

POSTED: 12:59 pm EDT June 12, 2006
UPDATED: 1:15 pm EDT June 12, 2006

As Floridians prepare for Tropical Storm Alberto, Internet gambling sites are taking bets whether a hurricane will slam into the state or any other location in the country, according to a report.

Gamblers on offshore Web sites are wagering on how many hurricanes will sail through the Atlantic and even their intensities when they make landfall.

"We're not hoping for any disasters," WagerWeb market Director Jose Duarte said. "We are just giving our customers another option to entertain themselves."

WagerWeb and Betcris run offshore, online sites featuring offbeat stakes.

http://www.local6.com/news/9356621/detail.html

like this.

What kind of imbeciles try to make a profit off of the loss and suffering of others under the guise of "entertainment?"

Nevermind, I know the answer... :mad:

I don't really see the big deal (and, for the record, I live in South Florida). Gambling sites offer "dead pool" proposition bets all the time -- gambling on whether a certain celebrity will die of natural causes within a certain amount of time. Sure, things like this are morbid, but it's not as though it's actually encouraging hurricanes.

Now, if there was a site that took bets on whether someone will be murdered or maimed -- things that a deranged gambler could have control over -- I would have a problem with it. But as it stands, I don't see the big deal.

Now, pardon me while I go buy some extra bottled water and blue tarps :evilgrin:

May those web sites be hacked to death.

... of tropical storms and hurricanes this year. It was part of an experiment to see whether knowing the official forecasts, and how accurate they were last year, would influence their predictions. (Interestingly, their final sets of predictions were closer to their original guesses, once they saw how much the official forecasts, e.g. NOAA and Colorado State, had underestimated in 2005.)

To get people to pay attention (since this is a summer course, and a lot of students complained that this was "too much work"), I offered a $20 prize for the closest prediction -- to be picked up at our department's office after Nov 30th. So I guess this would also count as gambling. (I did give several hundred dollars to the relief effort last year, so I hope that makes up for it.)