North Korea Faces Off with US, as Paddy Power Offers Lines to Bettors

Posted on: September 26, 2017, 10:35h. 

Last updated on: September 26, 2017, 10:41h.

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Expertise: Commercial Gaming.

North Korea has warned that an attack on the United States is forthcoming, after President Donald Trump tweeted that leader Kim Jong Un “won’t be around much longer” should he continue carrying out nuclear missile tests.

North Korea Kim Jong Un Donald Trump
President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are making plenty of headlines for their fighting words, but bettors don’t believe action is looming. (Image: Reuters)

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said this week that Trump’s comments constituted a “declaration of war,” something White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders has called “absurd.”

“The whole world should clearly remember it was the US who first declared war on our country,” Ho told reporters at the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday. “The question of who won’t be around much longer will be answered then.”

Betting on political outcomes is illegal in the US, but it’s common at sports books in the EU. And bettors taking odds on the escalating tensions between America and North Korea don’t have much confidence in Trump’s threat of removing Jong Un from office.

At Irish bookmaker Paddy Power, the line “What year will Kim Jong Un cease to be supreme commander?” has “2031 or later” as the favorite at 4-7. That represents implied odds of 63.64 percent, with a $100 wager returning just $57.14

2021 to 2025 is next at 9-2, followed by 2026-2030 at 5-1, 2018-2020 (7-1), and immediate action of the Korean dictator being removed before the end of the year is a longshot at 14-1.

North Korea “Specials”

Paddy Power has an entire section of its online book devoted to issues surrounding Kim and North Korea.

One bet asks, “Where will Kim Jong Un visit next?,” despite the leader rarely leaving his country’s borders. Guam, which he has threatened to bomb once his nuclear program is ready, is the frontrunner at even money. Tokyo follows at 2-1, then Seoul and Washington, DC, at 4-1.

Regardless of the potential severity of US-North Korea tensions, the site isn’t holding back on what it does best: offering comical lines on otherwise humorless issues.

Paddy allows bettors to place wagers on whether Kim and Trump will settle their differences by playing a golf match in 2017 (80-1), if North Korea will erect a statue of the American president this year (66-1), and even if Kim will demand his face be added to Mount Rushmore (100-1).

Half-Brother Murder

University of Washington political science professor Don Hellmann told Seattle’s NBC affiliate station that the odds of the US going to war with North Korea remain very low.

“[Kim is] not suicidal. He’s not a kamikaze or a jihadist. He wants to survive,” Hellmann opined. “We would retaliate. What will that mean? It would mean he’s gone. He’s dead.”

But a report out of North Korea this week shows just how committed Kim is when it comes to creating global trepidation.

In February, Kim’s half-brother was murdered at Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Now South Korea’s National Intelligence Service claims the plot was all “part of a master plan.”

“Pyongyang wanted to send a worldwide message by murdering Kim Jong Nam in this gruesome, public way,” a Korea University professor investigating the assassination stated.