I want to bet (as in place money on) that Martha Stewart will not go
to prison.  Please tell me legitimate web sites where I can do this on
line.

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Request for Question Clarification by efn-ga on 30 Jun 2004 21:06 PDT

Hi mtb-man,

I found one site where you can bet on whether or not Ms. Stewart will
be sentenced to at least 14 months in prison, and another where you
can bet on one or more of the following propositions:

  Community service (no jail time)
  Under 1 month of jail time
  Financial penalty (no jail time)
  Over one month of jail time
  Over one year of jail time

None of these is exactly what you requested (prison or not).  Shall I
post links to these sites as an answer, or would you prefer to wait
and see if another researcher can do better in either quality or
quantity?

--efn

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Clarification of Question by mtb_man-ga on 30 Jun 2004 21:19 PDT

If the websites seem to be legitimate (I can't tell that from your
response), I consider your answer good enough (with the URLS, of
course).  By legitimate, I mean some place likely to not rip off your
money and/or CC number and likely to pay any winnings.  BTW, do they
show current odds for/against a current bet?

Scott

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the clarification.

The first web site is TradeSports.

http://www.tradesports.com/

I couldn't find a way to link to the Martha Stewart contract page, but
you can find it in the Legal category in the Trading Categories list
on the left side of the page.

The other web site is betonsports.com.

http://www.betonsports.com/lines.shtml#

The link goes to their "betting lines" page, where you can find the
Martha Stewart bets by clicking on "Trials."  There are dates to the
left of the groups of propositions, which I guess may be expiration
dates.  I couldn't find out what they were from the site and its help
function wasn't working.  If they are, the options I listed before are
no longer available, but down at the bottom of the page, there is
another series of Martha Stewart bets, with a date of July 7.  In
these, the minimum amount of jail time you can bet on is six to eight
months.  This is time sentenced, not time served.

I cannot guarantee the legitimacy of either site.  I feel fairly
confident about TradeSports due to the way the site looks and the
mentions I have seen in the mainstream press.  betonsports.com makes
its case on this page:

http://www.betonsports.com/aboutus.shtml

Both sites do show current odds, though in different ways.  On
TradeSports, you buy and sell contracts that pay off a fixed amount or
nothing.  The discount of the sales price in relation to the fixed
amount determines the odds.  betonsports shows numbers like "+200",
which are apparently odds in some form, but the site doesn't explain
what they mean.  I suspect that in order to deal with betonsports, you
may have to talk to one of their 1,100 multilingual customer service
professionals.


Search Strategy

I already knew about TradeSports.  I found betonsports through a search for

"current events" betting


I hope this information is helpful.  If you need more information,
please ask for a clarification.

Good luck,

--efn

Thanks for your answer.  I looked over these web sites and they seem
very complicated.  It seems like they will require a lot of reading to
figure out how to understand and place a meaningful bet.  I just wat
to bet MS will receive NO prision time, see those odds and go! It
seems like that's not possible on these sites.  Anyway, thanks for the
answer.  STT