Do you love to gamble online? What about online betting? Do you spend too much time in an online casino? Well, here’s your chance to “feel good” about your addiction and compete with others to raise money for your favorite charity.
NewsFutures, a prediction market pioneer, just launched a new site called Bet2Give that lets you bet online but makes sure that you cannot profit financially or materially when you win. All the money you win or lose eventually goes to non-profit organizations. Bet2Give is obviously not a “gambling” site. It’s actually quite different.
Since you are betting against other people, you’re competing to divert your money to your favorite causes. And the other people are doing the same thing, trying to get your money and divert to their favorite charities.
Bet2Give is a “real-money prediction market” where you “grow your account with investments in smart predictions about the future, then give your winnings away to non-profit organizations of your choice,” according to Newsfutures.
Topics on the site include sports, finance, politics, the war on terror, Iraq, and various current events in between.
Why Bet to Give ? – bet2give lets you use your betting skills to champion and raise money for your favorite causes. It combines the thrills of betting and giving in a powerful new emotional experience. If you bet right and make a profit, you can effectively direct other people’s money to non-profit organizations of your choice. And even if you bet wrong and lose, your money will go to worthy causes… chosen by the winners.
bet2give vs Gambling – Because you cannot profit yourself financially or materially from your participation, bet2give is obviously not a “gambling” venue. If you are looking to bet for profit (which is illegal), you should look elsewhere. But if you’re looking to champion your favorite causes, we hope you will join us!
The Game – bet2give is a so-called “prediction market” where betting consists of buying and selling “prediction stocks” which pay off when the predictions become true. If you buy correct predictions, your portfolio grows, otherwise it loses value. Prediction Markets offer the most exciting kind of betting available on the internet. More…
Funding & Giving – To participate, you must open an account and fund it using a credit card or a PayPal™ account.
— It costs US$1.05 to fund $1 into your account.
— The money in your account may only be used to buy and sell prediction stocks or to make donations. It is not redeemable for monetary value.
— Each $1 in your account is worth US$1 towards a donation by NewsFutures to one of your favorite non-profit causes.
Baltimore-based NewsFutures, founded in 2000 by Maurice Balick (CTO) and Emile Servan-Schreiber (CEO), is the leading worldwide provider of prediction market technology and solutions. NewsFutures customers are large companies and global media brands seeking to harness the predictive wisdom of their employees, clients or audience. Since 2000, NewsFutures has also operated an eponymous play-money prediction market on all the news which has been discussed in the New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, Slate, Nature, CBS News, and James Surowiecki’s best-seller “The Wisdom of Crowds” (2004).