betting

IBM's supercomputer Watson racked up $5,000 in winnings on day one of the three-day Jeopardy! challenge Monday, but so did one of its human competitors. The human champs, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings, face long odds -- at least according those betting their own money on the action.

When Mario Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize for Literature this week, the British literary betting agent Ladbrokes couldn't have been more pleased. Ladbrokes had given the Peruvian author slim odds of winning the prize, so when Vargas Llosa won, Ladbrokes avoided a massive payout.

The bond-trading specialist is taking bets and setting odds for the new M Resort Spa & Casino. But instead of simply handicapping games and accepting wagers, Cantor's tech-savvy braintrust has turned betting into something more akin to trading.

Betting is a terrible idea, unless you're going to win. Then it's the best. When it comes to the NCAA Tournament, we should all know by now that it's easy to be humbled and have your brackets broken (see: Northern Iowa beats Kansas.) Still, betting has become such a popular part of the tournament...

As November 4 draws closer, I've started to become a poll geek. While my favorite time-wasters used to include Facebook, YouTube, and eBay, I now blow at least a few minutes a day checking out the latest surveys on Yahoo and CNN. I've found myself obsessing over who Indiana is going to vote for,...

What would you do if you had only a few months to live?Personally, I have a reasonably long list of items, most of which cost an awful lot of money. I don't really know how I'd end up paying for them if push ever came to shove; I never really got past making the list. Perhaps I'd rob a bank or...

If you've been thinking about going to the Super Bowl, chances are you've also been contemplating selling a kidney to make it happen. Before you climb into the ice bath and sharpen the scalpel, you might want to take a peek at Yoonew. The brainchild of a pair of Princeton engineers, Yoonew is an...