Oddsmakers Make Millennium Bug a Longshot for Online Wagers

January 1, 2000, will bring the closure of the Federal Reserve Bank, a 200-point drop in the stock market, an airplane crash and even an alien landing at the White House. You can bet on it--over the Internet, that is.

Costa Rica-based NASA Sportsbook (https://www.nasasports.com), an online betting operation, began taking wagers this week on a host of unusual events related to the beginning of 2000.

For 1,000-to-1 odds, you can bet that the Federal Reserve Bank will be forced to close for 24 hours because of a Y2K computer malfunction. For slightly lower odds--700 to 1--you can bet that the millennium bug will shut down Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, Citibank, UBS bank or Dresdner Bank for 24 hours.

The truly daring can jump on a million-to-1 bet that an alien--and they don’t mean noncitizen--will land at the White House on Jan. 1.

“If we can come up with a line for something, we’ll take a bet on it,” said Mark Bennett, vice president of marketing for NASA Sportsbook.

The coming of the millennium has sparked anxiety, fear and jubilation. Now, as NASA Sportsbook has discovered, it has also prompted some to gamble on the future.

Bennett said there has not been very much interest in the bets. The company has received no more than $4,000 total in these millennium bets, with few individual bets going beyond $5.

But then again, he is a bit surprised that they have received any bets at all.

“It’s just people having fun,” he said. “They’re just making a joke out of the thing. No serious bettors are doing this.”

Online gambling is illegal in the United States under the Federal Wire Act, but companies, such as NASA Sportsbook, have managed to get around the law by opening their virtual casinos overseas.

It has become a growing industry, with at least 200 companies around the world, said John Sheck of the American Gaming Assn., a group representing the commercial casino industry.

The Caribbean and Costa Rica have become the most popular spots for these online casinos, which usually consist of a few computers connected to the Internet and a room full of operators staffing the telephones.

Most states have laws against placing bets, but prosecutions are rare.

The virtual casinos offer the usual variety of gambling and sports betting, but occasionally dabble in what is known as “exotic props”--unusual propositions, often with ridiculous odds.

NASA Sportsbook has one millennium bet with minus-200-to-1 odds (that is, a $200 bet wins $1) that there will be an increase in the sales of pistols and shotguns in the U.S. in December, compared with last December.

Not all the bets are total longshots. There are 5-to-1 odds that the Dow Jones industrial average will drop by 200 the Monday after New Year’s--a definite possibility given the usual gyrations of the stock market.

But Bennett said the spirit of the Y2K bets is to be wild and irrational.

The company’s biggest and kookiest longshot is a million-to-1 bet that the world will come to an end Jan. 1. So far, about 150 bets have been made on the proposition, Bennett said.

But he asked: “If the world comes to an end, how are they going to collect? It amazes me to no end, but people seem to enjoy betting on it.”