Yesterday was a pretty weird day. Despite everything that was going on in the planet yesterday – and you can assume that there were a lot of things happening – the whole world was transfixed with just one person.
The royal baby.
The hype surrounding the little one finally reached its climax when the Duchess of Cambridge officially gave birth to the England’s newest prince. Yes, the baby’s a boy, in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past 24 hours. Needless to say, the arrival of the young prince swept throughout the whole world with joyous celebrations from all corners of this planet, all of whom shared in the British Royal Family’s joy in welcoming the newest member of the Royal Family.
Everyone’s got a smile on their faces today and that includes UK sports books that are seeing the result of the royal baby frenzy come in the form of betting money arriving at their doorstep. Hell, even a CNN correspondent covering the spectacle – the name escapes me, I ask for forgiveness – threw down some money on the baby’s name, picking “Arthur” at 25/1 because she apparently liked the legend of King Arthur.
But that’s only one example of the betting hysteria that has captured the world’s attention. According to the CNN, British bookmakers have reaped the financial windfall from this surge of royal baby-related bets, taking in over £1.2 million ( that’s around $1.8 million) in bets on a wide variety of prop bets related to the little prince.
“The money keeps pouring in for the royal baby,” William Hill spokesman Joe Crilly told CNN. “At £350,000 we have already far exceeded the amount we were predicting we would take in.”
Even after the baby boy came out of the Duchess of Cambridge, it did next to nothing in slowing down the gambling tizzy. With the gender now known, bettors have taken their chances in guessing the baby’s name, putting money down on George (the 3/1 favorite), James (5/1), Alexander (9/1), and Louis (12/1). Even long odds like Philip (20/1), Edward (25/1), Francis (28/1), and David (33/1) have all been bet on by people from all over the world.
While the baby name seems to be the most hotly-bet prop available, gamblers have also taken in to putting money down on anything and everything related to the royal one, be if his first word (“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” is 500/1), his future career, and age at first night club visit.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from this whole spectacle, it’s that anything involving the royal baby, people will put some money on with the books more than happy to accommodate them.
