[nebula]

From the insurance company's perspective, it's a $1 million bet they are taking that no one will be able to achieve it. From the participant's perspective it's a $1 ticket to a $1 million lottery. From Zucker's perspective a business (I would call it a scheme) for making money. Quite interesting.

On a related note, Ansari X PRIZE (for the first private space flight) was partly funded through a similar deal with an insurance company.

[nostrademons]

A lot of crazy promotions are. Jordan's Furniture (in Massachusetts) ran a promotion where if the Red Sox won the world series, all furniture purchased in the month before would be free. Their radio ads actually answered "How are you doing this? With an insurance policy. That way, if the Red Sox win, we can be happy too." And the Red Sox did win the pennant, and lots of people got free furniture. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/PersonalFinance/Story?id=3771...

A bunch of crazy dot-coms were also funded with insurance policies, eg. treeloot.com (the infamous punch-the-monkey ads). Berkshire Hathaway annual reports often describe a bunch of them, as they're often the ones underwriting them.

[lacker]

Interesting. It's illegal to bet on baseball in most places. But Jordan's Furniture can buy an "insurance policy" that pays them money only when the Red Sox win the world series.

[ConradHex]

The reason insurance is generally exempt from gambling laws is that you are supposed to use insurance to protect you financially from what would otherwise be a negative event. Which I think fits here...