LAS VEGAS -- Everyone from toymakers to T-shirt vendors is hoping to make a bundle off The Phantom Menace -- and so are thousands of online gamblers.
Antigua-based Intertops.com, which bills itself as the Internet's first and largest sports betting site, has taken in hundreds of thousands of dollars in wagers on whether the Star Wars prequel will break the record for opening-weekend box-office gross. The current champion: The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which hauled in US$92.73 million on its release weekend in 1997.
The pros are confident that the aliens will stomp the dinosaurs, but the odds have narrowed somewhat. The betting opened in mid-April with Menace at 1-to-20 odds to break the record (meaning you win $1 for every $20 bet). Odds on it failing to do so: 17-to-1.
But by the time the books closed on 1 May, thanks to press reports on the number of theaters signed up to show the film and industry gate projections, the line had dropped to 1-to-8 favoring Menace, 13-to-2 for Jurassic Park. Gamblers could also bet on whether Menace would go over or under the record by a specific margin.
Roughly 10,000 bettors are now sweatily awaiting the outcome of the 19 May release of Menace.
"We were not surprised at the response but we were surprised where the money was bet," says Intertops.com executive director Simon Noble, himself a confessed Star Wars fan. "We certainly expected far more money on the film eclipsing the previous record." If it doesn't break the record, Intertops.com will lose "in the six figures", says Noble.
Fainter-hearted Star Wars fans can also lay bets on the prequel's expected gross with fantasy dollars at The Foresight Exchange. Intertops.com specializes in regular online casino games and sports bookmaking, but dabbles often in offbeat betting. It takes in around $100,000 every year in bets on the Oscar awards.
When NASA's Mars probe started sending back pictures two years ago, Intertops.com accepted nearly a thousand bets on whether President Clinton would confirm that an intelligent life form from another planet had landed on Earth. Most bet "yes."
"I've seen bets taken on the impeachment and a number of other weird items," says Sue Schneider, publisher of Interactive Gaming News. "I think you'll see more of this type of wager."