A dead pool, also known as a death pool, death watch, dead cert or ghoul pool, is a game of prediction which involves guessing when someone will die. Sometimes it is a bet where money is involved. The combination of dead or death, and betting pool, refers to such a gambling arrangement.
An example of the concept is where a list of celebrities is decided upon, and the names are placed into individual sealed envelopes. Each player picks a sealed envelope and writes their name on the outside of it. Each week, each player pays a small amount of money. When one of the celebrities on the list dies, the envelopes are handed out and opened, the player who has the envelope with the name of the dead celebrity wins all of the accumulated cash.
Read more about Dead Pool: Modern Application, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words dead and/or pool:
“Sunday morning may be cheery enough, with its extra cup of coffee and litter of Sunday newspapers, but there is always hanging over it the ominous threat of 3 P.M., when the sun gets around to the back windows and life stops dead in its tracks.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“... this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)