Website allows students to gamble on grades, earn cash

Creators of the website Ultrinsic want to motivate students to succeed in school —with a financial incentive.

Students can bet on their grades and receive money, or lose it, based on how they meet their own academic expectations.

“Students love learning, but there are times where studying and staying up all night is really difficult. Students need that extra push,” Co-founder Jeremy Gelbart said. “Ultrinsic provides incentives in the short term.”

Students can create an account with the site by imputing their basic academic information and a class schedule. They then can deposit money in the account, which is used to predict the outcome of one’s grades. The site calculates the odds of these predictions based on the information gathered about the students and the classes.

Higher grades then lead to higher pay. There is also a demo available on the site to help students understand the process.

However, IU’s connection with the site has not pleased everyone. Is betting on grades a form of gambling? And if so, will many of the students using the site be younger than 21?

“The website looks to us for some kind of commercial gambling operation,” said IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre. “That would be totally inappropriate for the University to be involved with. We don’t approve of gambling. We don’t condone it. And we certainly don’t want the IU name associated with any kind of gambling.”

Gelbart said he denies any claims that the site is online gambling or illegal because he said students have control over their grades.

“When a student has control, it’s not a gamble,” Gelbart said, adding that Ultrinsic has investigated gambling laws, and the site has the approval of several gambling lawyers. “Everyone would agree that it’s in a student’s control of how well they do in a course.”

Ultrinsic launched last year at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania, the two schools Gelbart attended.

The website has now expanded to 35 schools across the nation.

Gelbart said he and his staff chose schools that represent a sample of all colleges across the U.S.

“When we expand to different schools we want to be able to tailor a program to each individual school,” Gelbart said. “There are different requirements for each school.”

Gelbart said Ultrinsic does not need anything from the schools that are connected with the site because all the information they use is public record.

Gelbart said the IU administration has not contacted them yet, but Ultrinsic is open
to discussion.

“We would be happy to have a dialogue with them to discuss the benefit of having Ultrinsic available to the students at IU,” Gelbart said.

Is this legal?

According to the website 21onlinecasinos.com, “An age limit for players will be stated on the online casino site, and a reliable casino will do everything in its power to avoid anyone under this limit from playing at the site. It should be noted that at some online casinos the age limit is 18 and at other online gambling locations players
are required to be over the age of 21.”

In order to participate in the Ultrinsic website, students must be 18 or older, be a U.S. resident and provide an accurate transcript and access to school records. Students are also responsible for any fees in delivering the transcript.