Company lets students bet on school for money

Students now have a new incentive for making good grades through the online company Ultrinsic, a New York-based website offering an online betting forum for select college students.

Betting on success - Goli Hiekali, a junior majoring in communication, studies at her desk. Students who do better in their classes might have a shot at earning money with Ultrinsic’s new program. Heather Lee | Daily Trojan

Ultrinsic provides students with the opportunity to place bets on their grades and to win money depending on the grades they earn. For example, if a student takes a math class and believes that he is capable of getting an A, the student would place a bet of $100 for the grade. The student would be required to pay an immediate down payment of $25. If he earns the A as projected, the student would receive the full $100, earning $75. However, if he does not achieve the A grade, Ultrinsic would then keep the $25 the student originally paid.

Some students believe the program will help them work harder for their grades.

“I think it’s a good motivator for good grades. Everyone wants more money,” said Lee J. Cotton, a junior majoring in communication. “If you’re pretty sure you’re going to get an A, it’s an easy way to get money.”

Ultrinsic requires students to verify their grades by sending in their transcripts or providing official proof they acquired the grade they reported.

Student Records Manager Jim Feigert said the university will not release a transcript to anyone without the student’s consent. Even though it is up to the student what they do with the transcript, Feigert said that gambling is frowned upon.

“Your record is very private and very valuable,” Feigert said. “The university has a responsibility to maintain that security to that document … [Ultrinsic] sounds like a nice way of them coming up with an excuse to legitimize gambling. However, it is up to the student who receives their grades and records.”

Steve Wolf, the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ultrinsic, believes his business will revolutionize the way students approach school. Thirty-six universities from across the nation were chosen to participate in their program, including USC, New York University and University of Pennsylvania.

Last year, approximately 600 students participated in the program from NYU and Penn.

“We tried to get a broad spectrum of schools based on geography, academic excellence and sports teams,” Wolf said.

Despite criticism from various organizations, Wolf discounts claims of gambling aimed at Ultrinsic.

“I cannot think of a definition of gambling that defines us,” Wolf said. “Gambling is when you take on a financially risky transaction without any control over the outcome. Studying is inside the student’s control and it has more benefits than just the financial.”

Yet, some students say the success of the program depends on the person who is making the bet.

“In the beginning, the motivation is strong, but after a while it dies down. It depends if you have self-motivation,” said Kevin Fu, a freshman majoring in business administration, who said he would be willing to bet money on his grades.

Feigert cautions students in regard to releasing their information to third parties and emphasizes that the university will not release any information independently.

“By just allowing anybody in to access your information electronically, that opens up a whole floodgate of concerns for us,” Feigert said. “We aren’t going to let that be something that is automatically or easily done by a third party.”

Ultrinsic has two approaches to garnering student participation: campus representatives and a referral program, in which a student can refer a friend and receive 5 percent of the money his friend wins. If the friend loses, then the student who originally referred the friend does not lose anything.

“The only possibility that we would lose money is [if] the program is so motivational to students that they just do awesome,” Wolf said. “If that’s the case, we could make the program harder, but better than that, we would get funding from the government because then we’d be the solution to schooling.”