2017 Time Magazine ‘Person of the Year’ Updated Betting Odds
–TIME Magazine started selecting a ‘Man of the Year’ in 1927.
– In 1999, it became the ‘Person of the Year’.
– The designation is given to the person “for better or for worse…has done the most to influence the events of the year”.
SPORTS BETTING EXPERTS posted our first odds on the 2017 Time Magazine ‘Person of the Year’ in early March. The expectation was that it would change significantly over the course of the year but guess what? It didn’t. 2016 winner Donald Trump was the favorite back in March and he’s still the favorite now. In fact, his odds have dropped despite the fact that TIME has only gone ‘back to back’ with the ‘POTY’ Award only once in history. Oddly enough, that was Richard Nixon in 1971 and 1972. Pope Francis’ odds have gone the other way primarily because he’s had a fairly quiet year by papal standards. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has moved up to the top of the ‘hit parade’ over the course of the year. She’s rightfully received props for being one of the few adults on the world political scene right now. At the other extreme, Vladimir Putin is where he was in March but North Korean majordomo Kim Jong-un has gone from +2750 to +1500.
I’ve installed ‘Trump Protesters’ as the third choice at +1250. This would be an effective way for TIME to get their street cred back among the American Left and there’s a precedent for it. A number of different protest movements won collectively as ‘The Protester’ in 2011. I’ve got Edward Snowden as my fifth choice. My rationale with putting him here is similar to what I did in the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize betting odds–TIME can give him the award he richly deserves and now that it won’t ’embarrass Obama’ they can dump Snowden on Trump’s front yard.
THE REVOLUTION WILL BE DECENTRALIZED
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of political types on the list but if nothing else TIME is a house organ of the 20th Century analog era status quo. There’s countless people, things and concepts actually changing the world–like Bitcoin which is freeing money from political control and is #5 on my odds rundown–but TIME and so many other relics of the analog era media still try to act like the politicians are doing ‘important things’. They’re basically curtailing freedoms and perpetuating wars while the private sector is busy inventing the future. It would be great to see TIME move away from validating statism and its overlords but I’m not holding my breath. Despite TIME’s contempt for a decentralized future they’re going to have a hard time ignoring Bitcoin’s explosive growth in 2017. When they gave out the 2016 ‘Person of the Year’ award Bitcoin was at $966. On January 1, it crossed the $1000 mark but quickly settled back in the high $900’s. Fast forward to today–as I write this Bitcoin is at $3,969 and has received a ton of mainstream press coverage this year.
The rest of the list is a mish mash of people who have done something significant already this year or have the potential to do something significant before the end of 2017. That’s a tough thing to assess and an equally tough thing to handicap. There’s not a ‘field’ choice since TIME will release a ‘short list’ of candidates around the first of December at which time I’ll re-price the market. In other words, all bets are ‘action’ regardless of whatever happens between now and December. TIME announced the winner on December 7, 2016 so you can expect this year’s announcement in the first week of the month. If they want to do the first Wednesday of December that will make it 12/6/17.
2017 TIME MAGAZINE ‘PERSON OF THE YEAR’ BETTING ODDS (UPDATED 9/18/17)
Donald Trump: +350
Angela Merkel: +500
Trump Protesters: +750
Vladimir Putin: +1250
Bitcoin: +1250
Edward Snowden: +1500
Kim Jong-un: +1500
Jeff Bezos: +1750
Guy Verhofstadt: +2500
Pope Francis: +2500
Julian Assange: +2500
Elon Musk: +2500
Barack Obama: +2500
Ban Ki-Moon: +2750
Xi Jinping: +2750
Hwang Kyo-ahn: +2750
Marine le Pen: +2750
Robin Li: +2750
Mark Zuckerberg: +3250
Mark Cuban: +3250
Neil Gorsuch: +3250
Emmanuel Macron: +3500
Daniella Vargas: +3500
Francois Fillon: +3500
Sergey Brin: +3500
Larry Page: +3500
Steve Bannon: +3500
Peter Thiel: +3500
Nigel Farage: +3750
Lady Gaga: +3750
Raif Badawi: +4500
Michelle Obama: +4500
Tim Farron: +4500
Tom Brady: +4500
Serena Williams: +4500
Marc Andreessen: +4500
Jeremy Corbyn: +6000
Bernie Sanders: +6000
Hillary Clinton:+6000
Elizabeth Warren: +6000
Jeff Sessions: +6000
Justin Trudeau: +6000
Theresa May: +6000
Jack Ma: +6500
Tim Cook: +6500
Connor McDavid: +6500
Rick Sanchez: +6500
Tiger Woods: +6500
Cory Booker: +7000
Tim Farron: +7500
Kim Kardashian: +15000
O.J. Simpson: +25000