In case you have been wondering, there are now official odds on the likelihood of Lady Gaga becoming President of the United States. No longer do we have to wonder. Next time someone scoffs and says “What are the odds on that?” you will actually have an answer. The odds are 100/1 that Lady Gaga will at some point in her life become President of the United States, according to bookmaker William Hill.

Novelty betting is nothing new. Any time a few guys get together and are doing some activity, at some point a wager will come up. “What do you want to bet I can hit that target from here?” “I bet you $20 I can get her phone number.” In recent years, proposition betting on novelties has become more popular at online bookmakers. The truth is, people like to bet, and not just on sports and casino games.

While sports betting is still the dominant category at online bookmakers, prop bets on things such as politics and popular culture draw the interest of those who aren’t sports fans. It has become popular to vote on things such as who will win Dancing with the Stars or who will win the Booker Prize for fiction. William Hill allows you to bet on whether or not it will snow on a given day. Almost anything can be bet on with one online bookmaker or another, including Lady Gaga’s odds of becoming POTUS. In case you’re wondering, the odds of Ms. Gaga becoming president in 2012 are 500/1. Barack Obama’s odds are even money, which seems a little optimistic, considering his abysmal approval rating.

You can expect online bookmakers to continue offering novelty bets and possibly adding more and more of them. Many insiders see that as an attempt to target women or others who are not interested in sports.

Lady Gaga has had quite a year in the world of gambling industry whether she knows it or not.  From her smash hit PokerFace drawing much attention to the game to the endless betting on her boy/girl parts, the news just keeps on coming.  And even though the song’s popularity has faded, yet another poker event has extended an open invitation to platinum selling recording artist Lady Gaga.  Ladbrokes is holding the Ladbrokes Irish Poker Festival next week in Kilarney and has asked the singer of the chart-topping hit PokerFace to make an appearance.

The Irish Poker Festival takes place during a break in Lady Gaga’s tour.  Gaga is currently touring the world with rapper/narcissist/crazy man Kanye West, but will have a break in her tour when the festival commences.  The invitation has been extended for Lady Gaga to perform for the festival’s main event which begins on October 2.

“It would be great if she could come and we’ll even make room for Kanye,” said Kate McLennan, head of poker at Ladbrokes,  “The question everyone wants to know is if Lady Gaga can make sweet music on the green baize.”

While Lady Gaga has yet to respond, the festival can confirm that Irish boyband star Shane Lynch of Boyzone is set to perform.  So if Lady Gaga can’t make it, they still have some entertainment which is good.

I still wonder if Lady Gaga has any real interest in poker at all.  I also wonder if the people who keep inviting her to poker tournaments realize that Lady Gaga is, in fact, NOT singing about “poker” in PokerFace.  Instead, the song refers to sexual attraction while dancing with a gentleman in a club and uses the term “poker face” as a poignant metaphor to describe the ambiguity of her intentions.

*No offense to Ladbrokes, but The Asian Poker Tour had the best Lady Gaga invitation of the year.

Online casino Titan Poker is now getting involved in offline poker tournaments. As part of an interesting rewards program, Titan Poker rewards players simply for playing. Gamers earn points automatically by sitting at a table and wagering. The more games they play and the more money they wager, the more points they accumulate. Earn enough points and Titan Poker will give you a pretty nice prize.

The current promotion is sending customers of their online casino to live in-person poker tournaments across the world. A recent winner was sent to the Irish Winter Festival for the live tournament. Titan Poker gave the player $1,025 for travel expenses and spending money as well as paying his buy-in for the event. Here’s hoping the winner realizes that for the live tournament, unlike online tournaments, it is not socially acceptable to play poker in your underwear.

In addition, another winner was awarded a seat at a table for the Asian Poker Tour’s Macau Main Event, which started yesterday. The buy-in for that tournament is $4,300 and the lucky promotion winner will have the opportunity to play against some of the best poker players in the world – or at least in Asia. The Titan Poker contest winner is not the only invitee to the event. The Asian Poker Tour famously extended invitations to Lady Gaga, of “Poker Face” fame, and Michael Phelps, of being the most awesome swimmer in the world fame. To date, neither celebrity has RSVPed, though Lady Gaga will be in the area on tour, so who knows?

For a chance to win these and other exciting prizes, visit Titan Poker.

A few days ago, Gambling Review brought you the feast of ridiculousness that was the Asian Poker Tour’s open invitation to Lady Gaga. In the letter, the folks at the APT weave a simplistic web of grade-school puns, humor and unbelievably weak attempts at inside jokes to “entice” the platinum selling artist. To sweeten the deal, they made sure to mention in their open letter that Michael Phelps had been invited the year before, hadn’t shown up, and so they were inviting him again this year, but they still hadn’t heard from him.

I spent so much time laughing at the open letter to Lady Gaga that I couldn’t resist finding the one to Michael Phelps and posting it here for your and my pleasure. With cracker-jack puns like “Forget the controversy about suit changes in your sport, concentrate on these suits: spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts!” Michael Phelps is sure to feel as though he is turning down an invitation from his closest friends and not a bunch of Asian complete strangers.

My favorite part is when they joke with him about his being caught taking bong hits at a college party, an incident that cost Michael Phelps the front of the Wheaties box, probably millions of dollars in other endorsements and resulted in an ashamed public apology. “Some media reports even suggest that you may have got in with the wrong crowd in the last 12 months – we promise to keep you out of trouble.” I’m sure he appreciates that joke that must have been thought of in a twelve year old’s tree-house. And of course there’s no better way to keep Michael Phelps from using drugs than by inviting drug cesspool extraordinaire and class act, Lady Gaga.

As the cherry on top, they ask Michael Phelps to invite Barack Obama as if they swim together everyday at the same pool. Why not ask Phelps if he can invite Chewbacca and Iron Man? Surely they are all American celebrities with whom Michael Phelps is acquainted. A sentence like “Michael Phelps! Tony Stark is the inventor of the spectacular Iron Man Armor! But he would surely let Chewbacca win at the risk of losing his valuable arms which the wookie would happily rip off if he lost a hand of poker!”

Ok, enough speculation. Please enjoy the Asian Poker Tour’s open letter to Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps below.

Dear Michael,

They say a week is a long time in politics and I’m sure you’ll agree that a year is a long time when you are a world beating Olympics legend. It now looks like that you are back to your best and congratulations on the new world record. Last year, we noticed that you had told your local paper that you were a poker buff and since then you have played in small tournaments at Caesars Palace in Vegas and been around and about on the circuit. In fact, lots of poker players claim you’re their friend but whether that is them using their famous bluffing skills is a different matter!

Last year you were in Beijing for the Olympics and we encouraged you to head down to the Asian Poker Tour Macau event at the StarWorld. We heard positive noises but there was no sign of the human dolphin when they called ’shuffle up and deal.’ We would like to extend this invite once again to you to come, all expenses paid, and take part in this showpiece poker event. The Main Event is in Macau between the 20 – 23rd August but the 12 day festival of poker starts on August 12th so let us know!

Forget the controversy about suit changes in your sport, concentrate on these suits: spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts! Forget your rivalry with Milorand Cavic, how about a heads-up game with the legendary Johnny Chan or modern day poker icon JC Tran? We know you couldn’t make the meeting with the Pope but how about a meeting of poker minds in Macau?

Some media reports even suggest that you may have got in with the wrong crowd in the last 12 months – we promise to keep you out of trouble. We’ll give you access to pools of sharks, fish and those that you swim in! If you don’t want to bring your goggles, fair enough, bring a pair of sunglasses and your poker face! While you are at it, you could ask a certain poker playing President by the name of Barack Hussein Obama II if he fancies joining you!

The question remains is the newly rejuvenated human dolphin really a fish? We hope to find out!

Best Wishes

The Asian Poker Tournament

The Asian Poker Tour loves to court them some celebrities. Last week, the APT invited Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps to the tour’s Macau Festival which runs August 12-23 at the Galaxy StarWorld Hotel and Casino. I’m not sure what Michael Phelps has to do with poker. My best guess is that the language barrier caused them to confuse the word “poker” with “toker.”

But the APT does not stop there. Their latest celebrity crush is none other than the chart-topping “Poker Face” crooner herself, Lady Gaga. The APT sent out an open letter (instead of, I don’t know, contacting her agent?) to the singer who, as luck would have it, will be on the island for a concert on August 15 at The Venetian Macau. Words cannot express the train wreck of horrid marketing strategy genius that is on display here.

“Imagine the reaction if you showed your poker face at the Asian Poker Tour Macau Festival dear Lady Gaga,” it reads, “We have a special Celebrity event featuring Hong Kong and Chinese language stars on Tuesday the 18^th which you would be more than welcome to attend.”

“Despite what some poker purists might argue, you have brought the great game to the attention to millions of new people through your worldwide best selling hit. Congratulations on your nine MTV Video Award nominations, but do us and the world a favor, come and see us in Macau and show us your poker face! We would be honored!”

First of all, that letter sounds like Mr. Miyagi himself penned it. Second of all, is the Asian Poker Tour really a second grade classroom? All that letter was missing was “I have poster of you in my room and Robert Pattison is like so hot!” Just send the lady an offer for crying out loud.

The letter even promises to pay for everything. Really? You mean you’re going to pay the multi-platinum selling singer to take time out of her schedule to say hello at your poker game? And why wouldn’t she with a line in the letter like “We have also openly invited Michael Phelps to come along and are waiting to hear back but in fairness, you are in the same city while the event is on so come on, all expenses are on us, just dance!”

I can only assume they mean their mom said it was OK if they all chipped in their allowance. I can even hear them giggle and get into a pillow fight as they say “Hey! Let’s make a poker face reference…twice!” And from that they go to being “honored” by her presence? Lady Gaga has sold a lot of records but she rarely wears pants. She is a borderline retard very talented performer.

I could go on and on about how silly this letter is, but I can’t possibly do it all justice. Below, you will find the entire letter that the folks at the Asian Poker Tour wrote “all by themselves without help from their mom.” For a superfunhappytime, read it to yourself in your best Asian accent for big laughs and the ultimate in shameless stereotype fulfillment.

“Dear Lady Gaga,

“I wanna hold them like they do in texas please, fold’em let em hit me raise it baby stay with me.” We certainly hope so and cannot believe the coincidence that you are playing live in Macau on Saturday 15th August while the Asian Poker Tour Macau Festival is in full swing at the Galaxy Starworld.

Your ‘Fame Ball’ Tour has been a huge hit and we’re sure the plaudits in Macau will be the same as in Osaka, Tokyo, Seoul and Manila but imagine the reaction if you showed your poker face at the Asian Poker Tour Macau Festival! Not only will the venue be full of the world’s best poker players, the tournament is also the backdrop to the first ever Chinese language poker movie ‘Poker King,’ which people would go ‘gaga’ for if you took on a cameo role. Forget the wigs, keep the bleached blonde hair and think about the exposure to a huge audience!

You are well known for your dazzling array of outfits and admired for your mix of music and independent attitude. You’ve gone acoustic and proved you have real talent but the bottom line is nobody has actually seen your poker face! We see you with cards and the glamour in the ‘Poker Face’ video but in fairness we don’t know if you can hold’em.

We undoubtedly are trying to spread the word about poker in Asia, and, despite what some poker purists might argue, you have brought the great game to the attention to millions of new people through your worldwide best selling hit. You have a new tattoo that is the big news at the moment but we finally see your poker face… now that is different, that is serious news! ‘Poker Face’ is not about poker and you cannot play cards? Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of people that could teach you!

You are in Macau while the premier poker event in the region is on! The festival runs from the 12th – 23rd with the Main Event getting underway on the 20th. We have a special Celebrity event featuring Hong Kong and Chinese language stars on Tuesday the 18th which you would be more than welcome to attend. We have also openly invited Michael Phelps to come along and are waiting to hear back but in fairness you are in the same city while the event is on so come on, all expenses are on us, just dance!

Congratulations on your nine MTV Video Award nominations but do us and the world a favour, come and see us in Macau and show us your poker face! We would be honored.

Best wishes,

The Asian Poker Tour”

GONG SOUNDS. They bow.