Place your bets: Ladbrokes is offering odds on $100 oil
Bookies offer odds on $100 oil
Oil prices have more chance of hitting a new record high before the end of 2012 than either Barcelona or Chelsea have of winning football's European Champions League this season.
At least, that is what two of Europe's largest bookmakers - Ladbrokes and Paddy Power - believe.
Paddy Power said the odds on oil prices hitting $100 a barrel in 2010 are 6/5. Ladbrokes was less confident oil prices are going to soar next year from the current $78 a barrel, offering odds of 5/2.
Both said the odds of crude topping $147.27 a barrel by the end of 2012 were just 2/1 - which means a successful $100 bet from a punter would see them get $300 back, including the return of their initial stake.
In contrast, Barcelona and Chelsea are the joint favourites to win Europe's most prestigious club competition this season at 7/2 followed by Real Madrid at 6-1, according to Paddy Power, Ireland's biggest bookie.
"We've got a very broad range of customers, anything from fairly infrequent amateur traders to professional investors," Thomas O'Briain, Paddy Power's fixed-odds financial trading manager told Reuters.
Ladbrokes is the UK's biggest bookmaker, operating 2700 betting shops. The company has offered bets on the oil price for more than four years, letting punters make bets daily prices, or where they think the market will be two minutes, five minutes or an hour after they have placed their stake.
Ladbrokes spokesman Ciaran O'Brien told the news agency it was still a niche product for them, but they were seeing more and more interest from gamblers.
"Most are not professionals or city workers, but are people who are amateur enthusiasts who have an interest in the markets," he said.
"Volumes are slightly ahead of last year with oil the fourth or fifth biggest market."
While both bookies offered odds suggesting oil prices might rise steeply in the the medium to long term, those professional traders banking on a quick jump in oil prices before bonus season might be disappointed.
The chances of oil gaining less than 10% before the end of the year are just slightly higher than oil almost doubling in price in the next two years, with Paddy Power offering odds of 9/5 oil will hit $85 a barrel before the end of 2009.
Ladbrokes offered 5/4 for the same bet.