Best Bets in 2005

The New Year is upon us. Sure, it's really more than a week away, but Walmart was playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving so I thought I would play along and start the New Year crap early.

And what's going to be the craze in 2005? Office pools.

Not the kind with chlorine and handsome Latino boys who check the chlorine, but the kind with money and chance.

1. The Dead Pool. Yes, with September Eleventh 39+ months in our foggy memories, it's safe once again to resurrect the infamous Dead Pool. That's where a group of your closest friends or co-workers each ante-up a chunk of change to a community pot, then each one makes a list of celebrities who they think will kick the bucket. If a celebrity should pass on to the great beyond, the players with that celebrity on their list gets a pay-out. To balance the playing field, set a standard on age limits. We like to base ours on $1 for every year under 90. For example, if you have Pope John-Paul II (age 84) on your list and he were to kick the bucket this year before his birthday, you would only receive $6 from the pot. But say I have Robert Downey, Jr. (age 39) on my list and he dies on March 15, 2005 (please, oh, please let it be an impacted colon), then I would win a whopping $51! You can spice up the rules by saying "high risk" behavior is paid-out at 50% (define a high risk death as drug overdose, car chase with police, anything with the words "Mexican stand-off" in its description). If you're feeling guilty by playing this macabre game, then at the end of the year donate any money left-over in the pot to a children's hospital. It will make you feel better. Note: "celebrity" is defined as any person who's death would make it on the front page of a national newspaper or be one of the lead headlines of a national news service.
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2. The Divorce Pool. A less morbid variation on The Dead Pool, this betting game involves married couples and which of them you think will break up. You can give percentage payouts for separations or bonuses for something more severe than "unreconcilable differences." Of course, this one is much safer played with celebrity couples, since they almost always break-up (everyone's a winner!). Plus, if you play it with people you know, it could hurt a friendship.
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3. The Politics Pool. This is more of a DC insiders' game, since so much more goes on inside the Beltway than we regular peasants could ever know. Simply put: who's in and who's out is the name of the game. People make a list and kick in some money to the pool. Every couple of months you check the lists and pay players on their accuracy.
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   And My Favorite:
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4. The EOW Pool. Everybody enters one guess at what will cause the End Of the World as we know it (from Armageddon to Nuclear Holocaust to Pandemic Bird Virus to Life Killing Asteroid Collission to the Yellowstone Caldera Exploding.) The choices are limitless. Also, you have to define what "end of the world as we know it" is, since very few things would actually kill every living human being (don't forget the secret moon base with genetically engineered super-humans, they count too!). I like to say that the EOW occurs if 65% of humanity is wiped out. Duplications get to split the pot if they win. Of course, there's a good chance that if an EOW event should occur, the game ends without a winner.