Remember that website that allows students to bet on their grades? Indiana University has decided that the website is illegal. According to an Associated Press article in the Chicago Tribune:
A new website that allows students to bet on the grades they’ll receive could amount to illegal online gambling, an Indiana University spokesman says.
“It looks like gambling to us,” IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre said, questioning why the university is included on the site, www.ultrinsic.com.
Ultrinsic founders maintain that the site does not actually constitute illegal gambling since Ultrinsic is actually a game of skill, not of chance.
According to the Tribune article, “dean of students Pete Goldsmith will investigate the site to determine whether it violates federal laws against online gambling.”
How helpful. Federal legal officials apparently have no interest in determining if Ultrinsic is violating federal laws. Goldsmith is not a lawyer and Indiana’s flagship university has no particular law enforcement powers.
