World’s Weirdest Wagers I

Some 40 years ago a man by the name of David Threlfall bet 10 British pounds that a human being would set foot on the moon's surface before the year 1970. Renowned betting firm, William Hill, offered Threlfall 1000-to-1 odds against this actually occurring prior to the cut-off date. With astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous announcement, "That's one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind," David Threfall became £10,000 wealthier. Sadly for Mr. Threfall, he later died by smashing the sport scar he'd bought with his prize money. Armstrong's lunar landing - it turns out - was only the beginning of many loony bets to come.

Skylab's falling! Skylab's falling!
In another out-of-this-world-bet, in 1979 Jackie Gaughan, a Las Vegas gaming innovator and the El Cortez Hotel's owner, invited wagers on where precisely the falling seventy-seven-ton U.S. space satellite Skylab would crash on the earth's globe. Gaughan gave 5-to-1 odds for spots all over the planet including specific nations, various regions, and, of course, the five oceans. One bettor entered a $2,000 bet with 12-to-1 odds that Skylab would land in what was the U.S.S.R. Further odds included 100-to-1 for California, or 2000-to-1 for the micro State of Rhode Island. Gaughan even presented 10,000-to-1 odds that the tumbling satellite would hit his El Cortez Hotel. In the end, Skylab smashed into Australia. The odds of that happening were a 30-to-1 wager.

Who shot down SR's proposal?
In 1980, the sportsbook manager at the old Castaways Hotel at the time, Sonny Reizner, seized the interests of bettors by propositioning them to wager on what was on everyone's minds during the time; "Who shot JR?" The question related to the shooting of oil tycoon JR Ewing, the starring character in the hugely popular American TV drama, Dallas. Reizner didn't only quote odds for each of the show's characters, in an effort to pass the challenge off as a sports wager, Reizner even added the Dallas Cowboys' football coach, Tom Landry, to the list of possible murder suspects. Days afterwards, Reizner was forced by the Gaming Control Board to remove the proposed wager and reimburse everyone their money. The Board cited the fact that at least one individual had to have been in possession of the series' script, and therefore knew beforehand how the show would play out.

Thinking outside of the box
A year after Sonny Reizner's famed "Who shot JR?" challenge, Johnny Quinn, the Las Vegas Union Plaza's sportsbook boss, raised an even more bizarre proposition: With all of the non-stop questions surrounding the assassination of President John Kennedy, and his murderer Lee Harvey Oswald's grave soon to be exhumed, Quinn enabled gamblers to bet on whose corpse would be discovered in the casket. Quinn gave odds on whether the buried body belonged to Oswald, Jack Ruby (Oswald's murderer), a Russian spy, or nobody. After a small number of bets were actually placed, Quinn's proposal was killed by the Gaming Control Board.

Following the exhumation, it was exposed that, even though Oswald's coffin was damaged as a result of a 'supposed' leak, officials believed the body in the box was indeed Oswald's.