A lot many people’s faith in English author Jeanette Winterson’s perspective on gambling as “an expression of humanness” has been proven right at a time the world is looking for updates on Pope Francis’s health condition after the Vatican reported deterioration in his health due to a “bronchial crisis”.
Even as people across the globe pray for papal recovery, a Bloomberg report highlighted the rush of bettors at peer-to-peer betting website Polymarket to place bets on a range of papal issues like the “likelihood of a new pope”, “which country the next pope will come from” and “who it might be”.
The fact that wagers on “New Pope in 2025?” generated just over $420,000 on Polymarket as of Friday afternoon, according to the report, seems to be a vindication of Winterson’s hypothesis.
“Gambling is not a vice, it is an expression of our humanness. We gamble. Some do it at the gaming table, some do not. You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play,” said Winterson, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a recipient of prestigious accolades like the EM Forster Award.
While the volume of collections indicate “humanness”, several questions have also been raised over the morality of speculation on papal health.
“Betting on the pope’s health sends you directly to Hell,” the Bloomberg report quoted one of the Polymarket users.
“Benefiting and hoping for someone’s death seems too immoral for me to bet on this market,” was another comment at the site, where commenters shared links to the latest updates on Francis’s health, and drifted into conjecture about a possible papal resignation and the existence of God.
The report mentioned that betting on papal elections was relatively common in the 16th century, until Pope Gregory XIV in 1591 formally banned Catholics from placing wagers on the election of a pope or on a pope’s tenure. That edict was, however, abrogated in 1918) and there are examples of betting on the outcome of papal conclaves, though in recent decades those bets have primarily taken place online.
Withholding the last name of a German finance professional, who placed a small sum on the Pope Francis bet, the report said that he acknowledged somewhat “perverse” incentives associated with death bets before adding that it could be compared with a hedge fund betting on a company going bankrupt.
Polymarket, which offers a platform where investors can place bets on various future events, including economic indicators, weather patterns, awards, as well as political and legislative outcomes, has had a tryst with controversies since it was launched in 2020. It has been unavailable for US users since 2022, when it settled charges with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that it was running an unregistered derivatives trading market.
The site drew criticism in January for hosting bets about the path of the Los Angeles wildfires, and in 2023 for letting users bet on whether the Titan submersible would explode.
According to the report, Polymarket declined to answer Bloomberg’s questions about whether it has specific rules on death bets, but it had some advice for its users in its February 24 newsletter.
“Gambling on the papal selection process was once punishable by excommunication (getting kicked out of the Catholic church). However this policy was either repealed or is now rarely enforced.”
“Not spiritual advice,” the newsletter concluded. “Consult your priest.”