IRELAND
Global Dispatch
Just two hours after Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation, Irish bookmaker Paddy Power was out with their odds and within 48 hours, they saw more than $200,000 in bets.
More than 20,000 people have bet hundreds of thousands of dollars on the papal change and international bookmakers expect that dollar figure to quickly move into the millions.
It’s illegal to place bets on the pope in the United States, even in Nevada, because it’s considered an election.
Plenty of foreign bookmakers, however, are capitalizing on what they say could be the biggest moneymaker ever outside of sporting events.
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