BluBet, Harmless or a Slippery Slope?

Insight into your Childrens Unaccompanied activity

BluBet, Introducing Your Children To Online Gambling

If you've never heard of BluBet then let me bring you up to speed. BluBet is rapidly becoming the next fad website amongst the younger groups of Bebo and FaceBook users. BluBet allows people (adults/children/anybody) to make their own bets or to bet on other people's bets covering just about any topic imaginable. Looking at the BluBet website at the moment popular bets include:-

Is it possible that all life on Earth will be extinct in the future?
Will Michael Jackson pay $25 million in time to stop foreclosure on Neverland?
Who will walk out of Wrestlemania XXIV as the World Heavyweight Champion?

Gambling and children, surely this can't be right? The thing is that when you place a bet on BluBet you're not spending real money but rather BluBucks. Because it's not a real currency this apparantely makes it ok. You are given so many BluBucks when you open your account and then it's up to you to place bets to grow your BluBet balance. Just like real gambling but without the risk of financial loss. I'm assuming that if you go "bust" you can just open another account.

I'm not sure what to make of BluBet, I'm just not 100% comfortable with children being encouraged to place bets, even if it is only for BluBucks. The trouble with social networking is that no doubt once one child signs up they'll be sending invitations left, right and center to everybody else in their friends network. Peer pressure comes into play. I sort of hope that the BluBet fad goes away sooner rather than later.