Gambling on papal elections

Gambling on papal elections has at least a 500-year history. Betting on 16th-century papal conclaves are among the first documented examples of gambling on election outcomes. During the same period, gambling was also common on the outcomes of secular Italian elections, such as that of the Doge of Venice.

The Republic of Venice forbade betting on the pope's life in 1419, and canceled bets already made. Life insurance policies were often taken out on the current pope, sometimes as genuine insurance by businessmen owed money by the papacy who feared a change of Pontiff, but also a purely speculative venture. Such policies on the lives of popes and other notable figures were forbidden in Barcelona (1435) and Genoa (1467 and 1494).

The first recorded example of gambling on the candidate to be selected by a papal election occurs with the papal conclave, September 1503, although Frederic Baumgartner, a historian of papal elections, considers it then already "an old practice".

Discussing the election of Leo X in 1513, it has been stated:

Before and during the papal conclave 1549-1550, many Roman bankers offered betting spreads on the papabili (cardinals likely to be elected). According to the Venetian Enrico Dandolo, a witness to the conclave, "it is more than clear that the merchants are very well informed about the state of the poll, and that the cardinals' attendants in Conclave go partners with them in wagers, which thus causes many tens of thousands of crowns to change hands". Dandolo describes an early example of insider trading.Cardinal del Monte (who was eventually elected Julius III) had eventually started out as the favorite at -1, trailed by Salviati, Ridolfi, and Pole, but Pole was the favorite three days later at 4-1. By December 5, Pole's odds had shortened to 100-95. With the arrival of four additional French cardinals on December 11, Pole's odds drifted to 5-2. On January 22, the odds quoted against the conclave finishing during January were 10-9, against February: 2-1, against March: 5-1, and never: 10-1.

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