New York-based company Ultrinsic’s site now provides with a platform where they can take part in what amounts to betting on their own grades. Ultrinsic offers wager tiers ranging from straight A’s to “grade insurance” against bombing out of the semester; all possibilities give students incentives via potential moneymaking.
Ultrinsic CEO says this is different than online gambling
Ultrinsic chief executive Steven Wolf wants everyone to know that his company is not an online gambling portal. He told the Associated Press that “betting on grades” is inaccurate, within the sense that skill is what is actually involved, as opposed to luck. What one person would call gambling, Wolf would call students investing within the future – their own future.
“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,” Wolf says. “Everything’s true about this; I’m just trying to say that the underlying concept is just a little bit more than just making a bet – it is actually an incentive”.
How Ultrinsic does it
If a college student is 18 or older, they’re eligible to register for the inspirational “gaming” service. The odds on present wagers are tabulated based upon upon the student’s past academic record. Based upon upon data provided by participating colleges, odds are also affected by specific course information. The student can wager up to $25 to start, but the cap increases with repeated use of the website. At this time, there are 36 colleges that are available for business in the Ultrinsic network.
Isn’t this still gambling?
I. Nelson Rose of California’s Whittier Law School says that while standard online gambling involves chance, a fee/wager and some form of prize, what Ultrinsic does is less clear-cut. Sometimes, grades are partly influenced by instructor grading theories that prevent A’s from being assigned, for instance. Yet for the most part, grades are within a student’s control. Thus, luck falls largely by the wayside as skill becomes the prime determinant.
Wolf doesn’t deny that such variables can in fact exist. Yet the study efforts of students are what keeps what Ultrinsic does out of the realm of chance-based gambling. “The biggest variable is how much effort the student wants to put in,” he told the Associated Press. “In general, if anybody would study 10 hours a day consistently for one class, they would get no matter what grade they wanted to get”.
Additional reading
Associated Press
articles.moneycentral.msn.com/news/article.aspx?feed=AP and amp;date=20100810 and amp;id=11861854
Ultrinsic
ultrinsic.com/
