If you’ve got tremendous insight into current events, a new site can help you blow off some steam and earn virtual money based on your predictions of unfolding news stories. From Wired:

Nigel Eccles, a news junkie and former online betting site employee, wanted to try pursuing both interests at once.

Thus was born Hubdub – a new Web site Eccles and three colleagues in Edinburgh, Scotland, assembled – where customers will bet for fun, not money, on the outcomes of real news stories.

The site launches Monday as an influential technology conference gets under way in Palm Desert, Calif. – where Eccles plans to try drumming up support from investors.

Here’s how it will work. After signing up, you’ll receive 1,000 “Hubdub dollars,” play money that works only on the site. You can look at stories about, say, whether Gregg Williams will be named the next head coach of the Washington Redskins or who will win the Florida Republican primary.

Guess right, and you’ll win more Hubdub dollars. Lose, and your account will draw down. In the spirit of the board game Monopoly, where simply sticking it out is rewarded, you’ll also get 20 new Hubdub dollars ever day you log in.

Wired News – AP News

This seems somewhat similar to the TerrorDAQ idea floated a few years ago, but instead of helping authorities determine where terrorist attacks were likely, the users are just wasting worktime goofing around on the Internet.

If you’ve ever wanted commit to something but need online peer pressure to make you go through with it, check out stickK.com (via the Undercover Economist):

On stickK, you draw up an official commitment contract that binds you to achieving a personal goal, be it big or small. By agreeing to this contract, you publicly state your goal and commit to achieving it. Or, if grand public pronouncements aren’t your style, you can tell only people you select. Either way, you’ve committed to a goal and people know about it – so now it’s your reputation at stake!

To make you accountable as you work toward your goal, you file weekly reports on your success. (And don’t even think about lying — because you appoint someone you know as a “referee” to verify the accuracy of your reporting!) You also enlist as many Supporters as you’d like to encourage you, via the website, every step of the way. If being part of a group gives you momentum, you can join a community of people on the site who are working toward the same goal as you (this feature will be ready in February). To keep yourself focused throughout your adventure, you record your progress – daily — in a personal journal.

Want to up the ante? Gamble more than your reputation. Place a financial wager on yourself. If you accomplish your goal, you get your money back. If you don’t, your money goes to charity or to someone you’ve designated in advance. (How about to a foe, or to a cause you dislike, for some added incentive?)

All these support tools make you more likely to stickK with it — until your goal envisioned is a goal accomplished!

Why? Because when people put their goals in writing, are accountable to someone monitoring them, have a support network around them, and regularly record their progress, they’re more liable to stay on trackK. Then there’s putting even your money on the line; research has shown that people with a vested interest in accomplishing a goal are two to three times more likely to succeed than goal-seekers with nothing invested!

stickK.com – Put a contract out on yourself!

Because who needs to do something for personal integrity, when you can gamble on it?

If there was any possible way to make money off of these gambles (instead of breaking even), advantage players would be all over it.

I’m just fascinated that we’ve reached a stage where betting money on something is actually considered a healthy moral choice. I’m not saying it isn’t; I’m just saying that fifty years ago, this would have really freaked people out.