It is sick what some people will do for money. A macabre gambling trend, according to various reports, has taken off in Taiwan’s third largest city, Taichung. Doctors, nurses and even the families of terminally ill cancer patients are placing bets on when the sick will die, for the chance to win three times the wagered sum. On a single Taichung street, some 60 so-called "senior clubs" lurk behind ordinary-looking shopfronts, all of them posing as charitable organisations for the elderly - while challenging punters to take a bet on the precise moment that members will draw their final breaths.

Local media reports that many dying patients in the wards of Taichung hospitals, wake up to see not only relatives by their bedsides, but also groups of gamblers checking their vital signs and inquiring about the prognosis. Bet organizers also roam the hospitals regularly, whispering to various clients that it will soon be time to “pay the bill” or “close the case”.

The sickening game is very simple;
As a dying cancer patient is put into play, gamblers have to make a bet of at least $40 - $65. Reports also say some punters have placed as much as $350,000. If the patient dies within one month, the house takes the entire pot, but if he survives past that, pay-outs to punters rise with each day and week. However, if the ill person manages to cheat death, punters rise up to six months.

What’s appalling about all this is bookies actually ask for permission from the cancer patient’s family to put him into play, and promise them 10% of the whole put, should he survive for another month. Stomp reports a 10% finders fee is paid to families of the patients win or lose, making the game even more hard to resist, especially for poor families who can’t even afford the cost of a decent funeral. .

Police are said to be investigating the ghoulish industry, not just for its contravention of Taiwanese gambling laws but because it creates such obvious moral hazards. In some cases, families are thought to have been offered special bonuses by organisers, if they instruct doctors to withhold life-prolonging treatments.

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2258917/dead-cert-Gamblers-betting-hospital-patients-live-die-relatives-doctors-flutter.html&sa=U&ei=cHztUJevH4md0AWy1ICIDA&ved=0CCAQFjAE&usg=AFQjCNE6Hj0YRiDDdwrpvfKo35TnnaKZTQ

The world has really gone crazy.

Lots of negative vibes seem to be coming from Asia these days.