I got an email today requesting a link over to a sports betting website. I'm not usually in the business of answering these positively, but I couldn't help but be impressed by their campaign. Check out - Put your Money Where Your Blog is from BetUS. The gist is - you can bet on blog ranks at Technorati thorugh the system by, for example, guessing that on New Year's Eve 2006, Matt Cutts' blog will be ranked #1 at Technorati. The odds against this are 6 to 1, so if you place a $100 bet, you get $600 (and thus, earn $500 in profit).

What I love about the scheme is the ingenuity of the concept - it's great linkbait, for one and it also appeals to the right types of emotional elements in the blogosphere. They've created a marketing tool that brings them links, costs very little to run and produces income for the company. I feel like they must be reading from the same viral marketing handbook we've been preaching from. Congrats, gang.

BTW - Here's the current odds:

Anyone placing bets? Mine's on "none of the above" - I'm thinking a new blog will come along to dwarf all of these sometime in the next 6 months. I wouldn't put money on it, but I'm also not planning to place a bet on any of these guys... since I don't run their marketing campaigns :)