Talk about a “Dead Pool.”
A bar on Long Island, NY, has set up a betting pool — similar to the kind used for the Super Bowl — in which patrons pick the number of shootings that will occur in Chicago and New York City over the three-day Labor Day weekend.
Beneath the scoreboard, it says “Numbers are up early. Let the shooting sprees begin!” reports NBC-4 in New York.
An Instagram post from last week showed the purchased boxes of bets, with a photo listing the rules of the gambling pool and setting out that the official count of deaths and shootings will be obtained from the New York Times and The Chicago Tribune, MSNBC reported.
The bar in Patchogue, called The Cliffton, posted the game on Facebook, which drew criticism.
Mayor Paul Pontieri called the betting pool “foolish at best and disgusting at its worst because it isn’t what we are about…It’s not going to be tolerated and it shouldn’t be tolerated.”
Pontieri urged police and the state liquor authority to investigate because gambling at the bar is illegal.
The Long Island Chapter of the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence also asked Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to probe the matter. “This is the kind of place that needs to be boycotted,” said the gun-control advocacy group.
The betting pool drew other criticism. “Racist and transphobic. Absolutely disgusting place and staff who represent the worst type of people that LI has to offer,” one person wrote on Facebook.
The bar courted controversy last year after it published a social media post that included a transphobic joke about two bar patrons and customers complained.
“Why does this not surprise me from a bar that waves a Trump 2020 flag outside of it out in Patchogue. They’re running a gambling pool for the amount of shooting deaths labor day weekend comparing NY and Chicago. They’re even cutting money off the top for themselves,” wrote another person.
Ten people were killed and 45 more, including two Chicago police officers and a 15-year-old boy, were wounded in shootings across Chicago over the past weekend.
Chicago officials raised bridges and shut down some train and bus service last month after a night of rioting and looting caused widespread damage in the city’s downtown and along the Magnificent Mile shopping district.
Rioters and looters rampaged through Chicago’s Magnificent Mile shopping district, sparked by a shooting by a police officer hours earlier that left a young man wounded. Social media exploded with videos showing hundreds of people looting stores such as Apple, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Best Buy, Coach, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton. In some videos, gunfire can be heard.
“Chicago had 105 murders in July, more than double the 44 in July 2019, and 584 shooting victims is also up dramatically from the same period last year, with 308 reported in July 2019. July was the most violent month in 28 years, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Things are just as bad in New York City. There was a 177% increase year-over-year in the number of shooting incidents across the city in July, with 244 in total, amny.com reported. “In July 2019, there were only 88 shootings over the course of the month. The number of shootings increased by 72% year-to-date, with 450 by July 2019 to 772 by July 2020.”
