People never think about the poor job of the bank marketing person. Well, this article is for you. It discusses how a japanese bank is combining ATM banking with hot roulette wheel and slot machine action!

Japanese banks have long had a reputation for poor service but at least one is trying something new -- wooing customers with an opportunity to try their hand at Lady Luck.

A roulette wheel pops onto the screen of automatic teller machines when customers of Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank Ltd finish transferring funds. A lucky spin and the customer wins 1,000 yen ($8.50).

Source: Brett, reuters article

Barbaro is the magnificent horse that won the Kentucky Derby a month ago, and then tragically broke his leg in the Preakness race last week. The horse is still being watched very closely at the Large Animal Hospital in Pennsylvania. Check out the crazy rehab work and the number of pins they put into that back leg!

Source: Ramiro, thanks. Yahoo sports article

Just thought I would throw a quick congratulatory note to my MOM -- she won the 2006 NCAA bracket pool that wound down last week while I was in Egypt. C'mon people, that's the 2nd time she's won it in the short history of this pool. More kudos go to the runner up who also gets some cool cash: Mr. Eric Sulzer. Congratulations congratulations congratulations. Though I'm still nebulous about declaring a winner that didn't pick George Mason to the final 4 haha. Thanks for playing everyone!

It's that time of the year again! It's March. It's almost St Patty's Day, and its time for some brackets. :) The NCAA college basketball championship tournament starts this Thursday! The teams are set, the games are ready to start. The jumphook.com NCAA basketball pool is back in full force for its 5th year anniversary!

This year: $10 cash or PayPal to play. (Not taking credit cards this year, sorry) Choose your bracket online and the scores will be updated as the tournament progresses... Use the PayPal link on the left to pay. Just create yourself a login & password, fill out a bracket, and pay the man. Fun comes that easily.

Anyone can win -- actually, out of the 8 years I've run a pool, a girl that doesn't watch basketball has won 6/8 years... The usual prize comes out to around a $130 or so (75 % of the pot) , w/ a runner-up prize of 25% of the pot. This year it promises to get much bigger! Invite your friends, lets make this the biggest pool ever :)

Official rules are here: Rules

Fill out a bracket here: NCAA Pool Login

Good luck!!!

Finally, the true marriage of intelligence and gambling. If you think about it, it was only really a matter of time anyway...

British bookmaker Ladbrokes is now accepting wagers on the future of physics. They've opened a book on:

* Understanding the origin of cosmic rays by 2010 (4/1 odds)
* The ATLAS experiment at CERN finding the Higgs Boson by 2010 (6/1 odds)
* The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) detecting gravitational waves by 2010 (10/1 odds)
* Building a fusion power station by 2010 (100/1 odds)

Anyone can place bets on these breakthroughs during the next two weeks. Apparently, New Scientist magazine is also involved in the gamble, dedicating ten pages to it in the print edition.

“I’d be tempted to take a bet on the Higgs at 6-1,” says Brian Foster who heads the particle physics group at the University of Oxford in the UK. “I’ve been quite instrumental in betting the taxpayers’ money on us finding it, so I’d better put my money where my mouth is.”

Source boingboing.net, Link to article, Link to Ladbrokes