Betting on College Grades

In an era where people can now bet on anything from how a TV show will end to what politicians will be elected, it should come as no surprise that college students can now bet on what grades they hope to get.

A new online service called Ultrinsic allows college students to place bets on expected grades. And the bets range from your perceived ability to get a 4.0 all four years of college to simply pulling a B in chemistry class.

To get started with using Ultrinsic, a person must first create an account and deposit money. After doing this, you can offer a bet….say that you’ll get an A in advanced math….and Ultrinsic will give you odds on the chance of this happening. After the odds have been given, a person can then bet up to $25 on their grades. The more frequently a person bets, the higher the amount of money they’ll be able to wager on grades.

Because Ultrinsic is offered in the US and it involves gambling, people have questioned the service. However, the CEO of the company – Steven Wolf – explained why he thinks Ultrinsic is perfectly fine as he said, “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. Everything’s true about it, I’m just trying to say that the underlying concept is a little bit more than just making a bet – it’s actually an incentive.”

Incentive or not, allowing students to bet on grades is still a gray area due to the fact that there are other things besides just a person’s work ethic involved in making a grade. Sometimes professor bias or the death of a roommate could influence grades far more than how hard one hits the books. In being such a controversial subject, we’re sure to hear more about betting on grades in the future.

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