Your one-stop shop for novelty betting

With the help of bookmakers, we determined yesterday at Live Bets Direct that Gordon Brown (together with sidekick Tony Lloyd) has utterly buggered the Labour Party’s chances in the next UK general election. But just how badly has he screwed the pooch? An analysis of numbers and odds forecasting the number of seats each of the big three parties might occupy in the next formation of the UK parliament.

Gordon Brown getting reelected Prime Minister? According to bookmaker websites, we’re more likely to see Hugh Jackman play James Bond.

Come on, even the shameless Obama apologists were a bit embarrassed by the committee naming President Barack the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize: Not only was the man sworn into office some two weeks before the deadline for nomination for the award, not only has he not yet been US president for one year, but he’s [...]

So, buddy, who do you like for next Pope? Paddy Power reckons Francis Arinze of Nigeria is top dog to succeed Benedict XVI, but Live Bets Direct has our money on Cardinals Angelo Scola and Angelo Bagnasco…

Carrie Prejean has been stripped of her Miss California title; couldn’t have happened to a nicer person, eh? Cleverly enough, BetUS bookmakers was able to capitalize on the next obvious question about The Dethroned One – i.e. What’s next? – with a slew of “Celebrity Props: Carrie Prejean” bets for your gambling perusal.

The honeymoon may definitely be over for the Barack Obama Adminstration, but bookmakers are apparently seeing little reason to reflect any dramatic changes in the proposition odds for Election 2012. The past month or two has seen the Obamanation’s afterglow dampen significantly, with a lowlight reel that includes indignities such as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s standup comedy routine in China, the federalization of General Motors, Joe Biden’s tipmongering for the bird flu-caused apocalypse, and the presidentially sponsored hemorrhaging of federal money with no obvious improvement to the job market.

How about a little currency speculation? No, no high-tech software solutions, nor financial expertise, are necessary to play this game, and the variables are in fact reduced to one. We’re talking another wacky Paddy Power novelty bet here, namely “AUD versus the EUR on 31st December 2009?”

For proper electoral politics junkies like yours truly (not to mention bookmakers Bet365 and Paddy Power, among others), no soon is too soon to start discussing the possibilities for Decision 2012, a.k.a. the next US presidential election. Today, a brief look at the bookies’ lines on the outcome of the Republican primaries.

If this one isn’t tougher than the race for the 2012 bid in which London, Madrid, Paris, New York and Moscow went down to the PR wire with no clear favorite, the 2016 contest has got to be close in excruciating difficulty for the punter.

Particularly amazing is the possibility that Benedict XVI would become just the second pope to visit Britain since that nasty business with King Henry VIII back in the 1530s.