World’s Weirdest Wagers Ever Placed – Part II

A 58-year-old Californian is alleged to have once accepted 10,000 to 1 odds that he could father a baby by ‘normal means' at the young old age of 100. (We don't know what the final result was but we do hope the old bugger managed to at least rise to the occasion.)

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A totally out there Oregon husband and wife accepted 5000 to 1 odds that either the English or United States government would confirm the existence of an extraterrestrial space-ship in the Earth's atmosphere before the millennium ends. Needless to say no alien spacecraft was ever found and the Oregon couple disappeared into total oblivion, until now that is.

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When Christian televangelist Oral Roberts declared to a television audience in 1987 that the Lord had instructed him to raise eight million dollars by March if he hoped to circumvent his own death, Little Caesars' late proprietor, Gene Maday (who failed to circumvent his own death), listed a price on whether or not the good preacher would actually manage to raise the money before God's deadline.


"I'd have made the over/under line at US$4.6 million," Maday was said to have declared after gambling authorities cancelled the bet and threw the not-so-good-book at him. Maday went on to assert, "We would book anything if the gambling board would let us."

Roberts wound up raising US$9.1 million and still isn't dead.

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Bookies in the UK posted 1,000 to 1 odds that golfing sensation Tiger Woods shall one day be elected president of the U.S. (though not necessaril by American voters). They also gave 5,000 to 1 odds that former President Bill Clinton & Monica Lewinsky would marry.

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500 to 1 odds were posted that the FBI could confirm that Elvis has indeed not left the building but is in fact still alive and well. The FBI's chances of confirming that Michael Jackson and his supposed sister, LaToya, are actually the same person are also given 500 to 1 odds.

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East Indian bookies are enjoying their largest pre-monsoon betting season ever with wagers pouring in from all around India forecasting the annual monsoon's ETA in Mumbai. Also being bet on is the amount of rain expected to fall. So far bookies have accepted bets valued at some US$900,000,000. The yearning for the annual torrential rain, along with forecasts suggesting when the rains will begin is a day-to-day topic of conversation as Indians soak up the 40-degree-plus temperatures day after sweltering day.

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Still, possibly the oddest wager of all was placed by London resident, Mathew Dumbrell who, with odds of a million to 1, bet that our world would end before the year 2000. (Just to satisfy our own curiosity, we double-checked with our research department and determined that the world has not in fact ended yet.)