Ghoulish Gamblers!
Remember the 100th episode of CSI Miami, "Death Pool 100"? Morbid though the topic is, the reality is that such lotteries do exist. Gambling on the odds of a celebrity dying at a relatively early age can bring big payoffs.Ann Donahue and Elizabeth Devine, who wrote the episode for CSI Miami, didn't pull the backdrop scenario from thin air. The concept is not a new one; however, it's grown to global proportions due to the internet. There are numerous websites dedicated to death pools; Howard Stern, we've heard, has had an ongoing death pool as a segment of his show.
Years ago we knew of small groups of people involved in neighborhood or corporate death pools, not unlike your office sports pools seen today. The yields from these were significantly less than the larger, more ambitious online pools. The person(s) holding Elvis Presley's name would probably not have experienced a financial windfall at the time of Elvis' untimely demise.
Those of today, where a Heath Ledger, Billy Mays or even Michael Jackson would be ranked with extremely high odds, their deaths would generate, in many cases, a financial boon to the holder. Ed McMahon, at 86, or Farrah Fawcett, with an acknowledged terminal illness, would pay out next to nothing.
Is it more than a little ghoulish to be gambling on anyone's life? Of course it is. On a list of mercenary and avaricious activites, death pools rank very near the top for the passive participants. We pidgeon-hole the players with the coliseum spectators of ancient Rome. Not so far behind are the boxing matches and fight clubs of recent times. Definitely a morbid topic and a gruesome practice.
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