Pope Betting Angle (For Degenerate Bettors Only)

I spent a few minutes looking through the Pope betting markets yesterday afternoon.

As well as betting on who the next Pope will be, Paddy Power has odds on many other things like the country where the next Pope will be from all the way to the number of foreign visits the next Pope will make in his first year.

The market I like the look of is 'Papal Name of the Next Pope' as I have a gut feeling on the name that will be used.

Peter is the favourite at evens, Pius is in second place at 9/2. The name I like is third on the list.

Now, before I continue, I want to make this perfectly clear - there is no way I am going to bet on any Pope markets so this blog post is for fun purposes only.

However, if I had a cheeky pound to bet with - it will go on John Paul.

The reason I came up with this name is because I read a stat on Wikipedia that 'on average the papal name repeats 3.29 times'. If the next Pope is John Paul III, his choice of name will be close to the average.

Yes, I used a stat on Popes to highlight my point. Maybe I am a degenerate bettor after all.

Nah, I need to place the bet first.