Very "special" bets

The world turns upside down. One of the biggest bookmakers of Kazakhstan offers its clients to bet on terrorist acts and plane crashes.

Acting since 2003 the Kazakh bookmaker, the name of which we will not tell in order not to advertise him, to our mind, has gone too far. Except from traditional bets on sport and betting exchange, he also has prepared “special bets”. Here you can see odds for a possible meeting of Putin and Erdogan (Yes – 31/20(2,55), No – 23/50(1,46)), and also the rest of the RF government till 31 August 2016 (Yes – 24/1(25,00)).

Just recently it added some other offers. Now bets on in what country terrorist acts can happen till the end of August are available. And how scary it may sound, the odds for terrorist acts in France or USA are at the level 14/1(15,00), in Germany – 19/1(20,00), in Russia – 24/1(25,00). Terrorist acts in other countries of Europe are estimated at 9/1(10,00), and their lack – 1/25(1,04).

Representatives of the bookmaker company do not explain what they were guided by setting such shocking bets in their offer. By doing this in case of other bets in the section “Special offer”. For example, bets on “will there be a plane crash in Europe till 31.08?” is explained that they strive to help avoid accidents. According to their thought a huge amount of bets on a concrete market testifies that something can happen and special forces should be alert. We do not understand such thoughts. We think that this is just a way of earning on human tragedies and fears. Who and on what ground sets the odds? What kind of information is available to the company’s workers in order to estimate a plane crash in Europe at the level of 104/1(105,00) and in Africa 74/1(75,00)?

The following shocking thing is the way of regulating these bets. How can one know which tragedy will be called a terrorist act and which just an infall of a maniac? Is there a defined number of ravening in order for the bet to be winning? We tried to get in touch with the bookmaker’s support but without any result yet. The only thing that can gladden is the fact that all this makes nervous not just us. Internet users criticize the firm’s policy in comments, assuming that in the nearest time they will also offer bets of the over/under type for the number of deaths during a terrorist act, what according to all this does not seem impossible, but probably very frightening.