People who often find humour in taboo or distasteful subjects are often regarded as comedic brave, however, if you look closely they sink to a personal low by cynically exploiting the situation of some of the most unfortunate individuals, only for personal gains. Do you know there is something known as ‘Celebrity death betting’ whose practitioners somewhat fall into the same category?!
There are a great number of people across the world who use online betting portals to bet on the next celebrity death. This practice is exactly the kind which elicits reactions like – Seriously? OMG? And WTF? from sane people everywhere.
Betting on celebrity deaths in the age of internet
In the present day and times when even poor taste and trash can serve as saleable commodities, it doesn’t come as a surprise that online bookmakers are offering odds on which of the two royal figures are going to die first. Hence, don’t feel overwhelmed if you are offered a choice between Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth in the celebrity death betting market. Until some time ago, Prince Philip was going (literally) at odds of-140 and Queen Elizabeth +100. As is evident, everyone was sure that Prince Philip will pass away before the Queen. Then there are articles than ponder what will happen if her majesty passes away.
And such type of betting options can reach another level if the two individuals have some type of personal shortcomings, for instance, drug addiction. In that case, this type of contest results in matches between celebrities like – Magic Johnson and Charlie Sheen. To give you an idea, Magic Johnson was being offered at odds of +160 and Charlie Sheen was going at -200. This despite the fact that Charlie is six years younger. However, because Magic Johnson is taller and a former athlete, it was Charlie Sheen which everyone thought would pass away before the basketball player. You should know that bookmakers factor in multiple lifestyle aspects including mental stability, alcoholism, cocaine addiction etc. to decide on the odds.
How about betting on group death pools?
No one knows where a trend like this might lead to, when the bookmakers are willing to provide the worst possibilities to gain the maximum profit. However, do you think you can wager money on the possibility of former public figures, who were convicted sex offenders, for instance Rolf Harris and Bill Cosby, to die in prison? Yes, you definitely can! For instance, in case of Bill Cosby, you’ll get odds of +250 for it not happening, and -450 otherwise.
And in case you can really stomach a different variety of bets that stoop to a new low, you can place wagers on group death pools comprising of people bound by some common thread, for example, ‘Alleged Sexual Deviants’. To shed some more light on it, you can get odds on who among the following will die first: Jerry Lee Lewis (+160), Subway Jared (+1000), Roman Polanski (+250), Harvey Weinstein (+800), Bill Cosby (+100) and Jerry Sandusky (+600).
All such possibilities really make one question, what exactly can be termed as bad taste! In the end it’s all about understanding and taking responsibility of your own personal boundaries, instead of depending upon some type of public morality standard.
