Gabby Petito had one of the most high profile searches in US history for both her body and Brian Laundrie.
Amusing thing is what happened in that manhunt.
It’s been reported nine bodies were found in both searches and fact that four were 100% found as a result of the search.
One was actually of a woman named Emily who was also killed by her fiancé “we live in an awesome time to be getting married” and the her body was found in the search, with the camper that also went missing.
On top of that, we also began a conversation with Petito about just how many missing person’s cases the US has a year.
540,000 people went missing in 2020.
340,000 people being under 18.
Of those cases, 95%+ are found within 48 hours and for minors, it’s 99% of the time with another parent, a girlfriend/boyfriend or another family member.
But still .6% of missing person cases do result in someone being dead and 2-5% will last over a week, with many taking months or years to be solved, if ever.
There’s also a fact that people love media content involving crime and terrible things happening.
Criminal Minds is one of the most viewed shows around.
Chris Hansen had videos on youtube with tens of millions of views.
Murder, theft, abuse and so many other terrible things are things which have built countless shows, movies, documentaries and online channels.
How this would work.
Someone goes missing.
- Info is put in based on the police report given, which is public.
- People have the right to find info and put it online, who are called the tip squad.
- A bounty hunter can register themselves as searching for the missing person.
- People can bet on when they expect the person to be found, condition of person, if any criminal charges and if multiple bounty hunters are involved, who catches them.
- The bounty hunter/tip squad gets a percentage of the reward based on bets happening as an incentive for information/finding them.
And doing this actually does help solve missing person cases for the following.
- Bounty hunters and online researchers get financial incentive to search. In a case like Petito, the incentives would have easily hit millions, if not tens of millions.
- Previously unknown cases get increased profile, due to financial incentive.
Why this is a good business.
- Once a company is the one doing it and has all the technical stuff working, they are it. Too niche for anyone else to seriously enter.
- Easy monetization model.
- Markets itself. Any missing person case to ever take any publicity will for the rest of time have press go “Public interest evolving as $300,000 in bets on case exist”.
- Works as a media component to it, where it could be partially a crime news website that markets this product.
Next, competition.
PredictIt does exist, but isn’t in this market now and probably wouldn’t get in.
Plus, there is a point here on finding information on cases and rewarding people who find the bodies or people as a percentage of the gambling pool, that predictit isn’t doing.
Final point, expansion.
I could see a market where legal cases for lower income people get betting pools built on them and a better lawyers help people, because they collect a portion of the funds from the “innocent” side.
Probably a few good lawyers who’d join cases where the client has no money, but they can be paid based on winning a percentage of the betting pool on innocence.
Conclusion
End of the day, people like mystery, they like crime stories and love gambling.
Mixing them into one and basically just creating the betting market for crime/mystery in the US can be a strong company and hey, even help some people.