Comment by bombcar

There's a classic type of British bar-bet that is based on basically anything somewhat random. Wodehouse had lots of examples of it - betting on what hat the next lady to walk in would be wearing, things like that.

The key was they were local and person to person in person - not online.

You and I sitting at the bar get into an argument/bet about what the low today will be, and the bartender bookies the bet before he checks what the low actually was - that makes a certain amount of sense.

Putting it online and making it accessible over TCP/IP opens it up to all sorts of scams and manipulation.