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For always and forever does the Os Man seek new ways to combine two good things: Gambling and, um, well, another good thing on which to wager. Which brings up the interesting case of the cinema; to wit, how can we bet on the movies?

Sure, the frenzy of Academy Award betting is annually appreciated and the truly hardcore can also dig Golden Globes propositions. Despite a steady stream of hundreds of cinematic releases throughout the year, however, little more in the way of betting is available. Box-office over/under lines are sometimes available but today’s movie marketing-as-science make the bookies’ numbers calibrated with reality well enough so as to make solid wins by punters as rare as acting awards for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Enter RottenTomatoes.com, the Tomatometer, and online bookmaker Intertops, a trio of mighty internet forces which have combined to create a whole new universe of movie betting opportunity. Already the cradle of film criticism democratization, the Tomatometer essentially approximates an objective answer to the once-purely subjective question “Does [movie X] suck? And if so, how much?”

So goes the Intertops prop: What will the critics’ Tomatometer read at 5:00 pm EST on Monday, July 20th for the “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” movie?

The over/under, with both outcomes paying at 1.83:1, is set at 82 percent. A quick perusal of Rotten Tomatoes shows past flicks in the run to have scored like so:

The Sorcerer’s Stone: 78%
The Chamber of Secrets: 82%
The Prisoner of Azkaban: 89%
The Goblet of Fire: 89%
The Order of the Phoenix: 78%

Intriguing, eh? Considering this table, the real question seems to have morphed into one of whether director David Yates can pull this series out of a relative critical tailspin. Before “Phoenix,” Yates’ last motion picture experience had been on “Rank” in 2002, a 15-minute short. (A BAFTA-nominated short, but a short nevertheless.)

Producers handed the reins to Yates, who has spent much of this decade in television – of the Potter series after a pair of directors (Alfonso Cuarón of “Y tu mamá también” and Mike Newell of “Four Weddings and a Funeral”) turned in the two most highly emotionally charged chapters (and tops on the Tomatometer: hardly a coincidence) of the series. Yates subsequently turned the longest book of the Potter set into the shortest film; and oddly enough, “Phoenix” still seemed long.

Worse news for Potter fans: Yates is signed on for the series’ remainder, including “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which will be broken up into two potentially stultifying long movies a la “Lord of the Rings.”

The Os Man’s advice? Easy. Take the under, and enjoy the mutterings as stuff leaks through July. (On the other hand, the trailer does look pretty freakin’ awesome…)