Who will be the next Pope?

Don''t look to journalists or opinion polls for the answer, but maybe to online gambling sites, which are operating betting sites to pick the next pontiff.

The frontrunner at most polls is Italy''s Dionigi Tettamanzi, who is anywhere from a 9 to 2 to an 11 to 4 odds-on favorite to win when the College of Cardinals meets to pick a new leader for the Roman Catholic Church.

"The fact that there are so many Cardinals (in the betting) shows that there is a debate about where the next Pope will come from," said Antonia Sharpe, spokeswoman for betfair.com. She noted that the Pope wagering on Betfair''s site has been underway for 18 months. Betting was slow initially, but has picked up sharply in recent days with some $70,000 wagered so far, and interest is building.

There''s virtually no interest in American Cardinals; all of them are way out of the money, she noted. Media reports indicate that America is so out of favor in much of the world, that it would take divine intervention for an American cardinal to become the next Pope.

The next Cardinals, in order of betting, are: Francis Arinze of Nigeria, who has a 15 to 2 rating, followed by O. Rodiguez Maradiaga of Honduras, 8 to 1; Claudio Hummes of Brazil, 8 to 1, and J. Ratizinger of Germany, 29 to 1. Bettors may click on "The Papacy" icon on the Betfair site to get the current odds in graphs like stock market charts.

Sharpe said that in Betfair''s approach, bettors play against each other. "We''re the world''s biggest betting exchange," she said. "The Papacy (competition) is a special market. Most of our business is horseracing."

Some sites, like Pinnaclesports.com, allow bettors not only to bet on the name of the next Pope, but also on age, nationality, and the number of days it will take to pick John Paul II''s successor.

So far, U.S. bookmakers at gambling centers in Las Vegas and Atlantic City haven''t joined the betting fray, according to the Washington Post.

Sharpe noted that Americans are banned from online betting, because of U.S. wire regulations. She added that "novelties'' wagering events like the Papacy can be very accurate and predictive of the outcome of events. "In the Bush-Kerry race, Bush was leading all the way. It shows that (online gaming) can be more accurate than the opinion polls."