College Students Betting Big Money on Potential Grades

If you’re fairly confident in your academic abilities, then you might want to join a new service offered by a company called Ultrinsic.

Ultrinsic is giving college students the opportunity to bet on their ability to potentially make grades. So assuming someone thought they could pull an A in their online writing class, they could create an account at Ultrinsic, wait to see what odds the company would give them on making the grade, and place a bet.

Along with creating an account, betting students must also give the company access to their grades and obviously lay some money down on any wagers that interest them. The betting is capped at $25 for beginning bettors while it increases the more a person uses the service.

Since the service is offered in the United States where gambling is a debated topic, many people are wondering if Ultrinsic is legal or not. CEO Steven Wolf believes it is perfectly legal as he said, “The students have 100 percent control over it, over how they do. Other people’s stuff you bet on, your own stuff you invest in. Everything’s true about it, I’m just trying to say that the underlying concept is a little bit more than just making a bet…..it’s actually an incentive.”

Wolf’s argument certainly makes sense, but there are other factors besides just skill that go into making a grade. There have been cases in the past where professors hand out all A’s or F’s because they didn’t make tenure while other students might cheat to make their grade and earn the money.

In the end, betting on grades is just as debatable as any other form of gambling in the United States right now. But assuming Mass. Representative Barney Frank can get his gambling regulation bill passed, any form of gambling might become acceptable in the US.