Fans of traditional doctrine bet on Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, a Colombian who has stood up to his country's ruthless drug lords. Some Vatican insiders are partial to Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Pope John Paul II's chief of staff. But among those speculating about who the next pope will be, the big money -- literally -- is on Joseph Ratzinger, who delivered a stirring homily at the late pope's funeral.
A number of Internet gambling sites are taking bets on who will come out of the upcoming cardinals' conclave as the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Some traditional bookmakers in Britain, Ireland and Europe are also in on the game, though US gambling centers Las Vegas and Atlantic City have shied away from the Vatican action. The official papal selection process begins in Vatican City on Monday and is expected to choose a successor to John Paul within a few days.
As of Thursday, most gambling sites gave Ratzinger, a German who was one of John Paul's closest advisers, the best odds, with a host of second-tier candidates not far behind. Among them are two elderly cardinals -- retired archbishop of Paris Jean-Marie Lustiger and Carlo Maria Martini of Italy.
There are also several non-European candidates, although betters appear to be less confident now than a week ago that the next pope will come from the developing world. There's even a non-cardinal among the very longshots on one site, Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley.
Can these Internet gambling dens possibly predict what will happen in the Vatican's inner sanctum next week?
Papal prognostication is notoriously difficult. The deliberations occur in secret; openly campaigning for the papacy is taboo. And the cardinals who will choose the next pope voted unanimously not to talk publicly at all until the decision is made.
"It is a futile effort, although it can be rather fun to speculate and even bet," said Greg Tobin, author of a book on the papal selection process.
The favored candidate going into the conclave is so rarely the man who ultimately steps out onto the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica wearing the papal vestments that Vatican watchers have a saying: "He who enters the conclave a pope, emerges a cardinal."
Even so, economists have been surprised at how well the aggregated guesses of betters align with the real likelihoods of different outcomes in all sorts of events. In economic terms, betters are essentially traders in an efficient market.
"If the ... market says [Nigerian Cardinal Francis] Arinze has a 25 percent chance, I'd have to be a serious papal expert before I'd even dream of thinking I knew better," Stanford University economist Eric Zitzewitz said.
Betting markets have outdone pundits, polls and the press in predicting other elections.
During the past four US presidential campaigns, economists at the University of Iowa have operated an Internet-based futures market where anybody who wants to can bet on one of the two major-party candidates.
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