RSS FeedBee betting
For a while now, I’ve been wondering if there’s a line on the Scripps National Spelling Bee. I’ve found watching the bee on ESPN strangely compelling, even though I don’t think Texas Hold’em, is in any danger.
Well, someone is taking bets on the bee, but you can’t place wagers on individual students. From USA Today:
When a competition goes prime time, the gambling industry cannot be far behind, even when the participants are little kids spelling big words.
Will the winner be wearing glasses? Will it be a boy or girl? Will the final word have an “e” in it? Those were just some of the betting propositions available online Thursday as the Scripps National Spelling Bee produced its usual anxious moments on the way to its first-ever evening finish.
“This is the first time we have offered it proper,” said Simon Noble, CEO of PinnacleSports.com. “We had so many requests from customers. We scratched our heads and asked, ‘Is it something we can do or not?’”
Noble said his company had received about $70,000 in bets on seven propositions as of noon Thursday, when the final day of competition began. That is far short of the haul for, say, American Idol, but comparable to the wagers received for this week’s first-round matches at the French Open tennis tournament.
“We’re surprised it is that much, to be honest,” Noble said.
Gamblers’ interest was inevitable in a competition that has been televised on ESPN for 13 years and has spawned at least three movies and a Broadway play. ABC planned to broadcast the finals in a two-hour prime-time special, a first.
People truly will bet on anything, given a chance. And imagine how popular the spelling bee would be if they could somehow get the kids to play poker while they were spelling.
And, oh yeah, people are betting on hurricanes (not a sports team with that name, but the actual deadly storms) and the apocalypse.
Seriously, playing cards used to be a popular pedagogical tool. So using them to further spelling isn’t that far-fetched.
Speaking of education, it looks like I’ll be teaching an honors seminar in the history of gambling for the Honors College here at UNLV next spring. I’ll update as it becomes more concrete.
Posted in gambling & culture, haphazard world
June 5th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
An editorial in the Reno Gazette-Journal had this to say about it:
Here’s a new question for Gamblers Anonymous to add to its list of actions that identify a problem gambler: Do you bet on the National Spelling Bee?
Yes, there is something disturbing about the spectacle that the annual competition has become (a spectacle that included the threat of a lawsuit in Reno): live (except in the West) primetime coverage on network TV, a lineup of press photographers at the contestants’ feet, and convention-style booths set up by sponsors outside the ballroom where the championship rounds were held Thursday.
But nothing is more disturbing than the news that one Internet betting site (offshore, of course) took about $70,000 in wagers on a series of propositions (Will the winner be a boy or girl? for instance) based on the outcome of the bee.
There’s an old gambler’s saying that warns: Never bet on something that can talk back. Surely that should go double for 12-, 13- and 14-year-old kids trying to spell words most of us have never heard of.
Those who fail to heed that warning need to go to some meetings … soon.