Episode 76: Now You Can Bet On Hot Dog Eating Contests, Literal Monkey Business, And Fake International Flights To Nowhere

Published Jul 9, 2020, 12:11 AM

Are you tired of not being able to gamble on your favorite sporting events? If so, why not drop a few bucks on the hottest new gambling-friendly sport: the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. In the UK, officials are campaigning to boycott products made by literal monkey labor. If you miss going through security at the airport, why not head over to Taiwan, where a recent contest allows 60 'lucky' participants to relive the experience of going on an international flight... to nowhere. Join Ben Bowlin for more Strange News Daily, and share your stories on Twitter: #strangedaily.

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Strange News Daily. It's a production of my heart media. In a world full of bizarre events, unsolved mysteries, and a billion stories from all corners of the globe, some news gets lost in the shuffle. This is your gateway to the stories on the fringe of the mainstream map. These are your dispatches in the dark. I'm Ben Bolan, and this is the Strange News Daily, our first story today. Who among us has not, at one point or another thought competitive hot dog eating would be way more interesting if I could put a little money on it. Well, if you're one of those people, you're in luck. New Jersey gamblers can now legally place bets on the classic Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest. It's a thoroughly American tradition, and this is the first time licensed bookies in any state have been authorized to offer gambling on the fourth of July tradition. One of the outfits that's taking bets on the hot dog eating contest in New Jersey is Draft Kings. This has a unique distinction. Its odds are being made by the man who first book odds on the hot dog event two decades ago. The head of Sports book One, Johnny Avello is a longtime bookmaker who left his position as the sports book director at Win Las Vegas Casino to join Draft Kings in eighteen. He says he first made odds on the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest after he did the same thing for awards shows like the Academy Awards the Oscars back in the nineteen nineties. He states, I was first ever to make odds on the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest in the late nineties, so I'm no stranger to the competition. There was no betting on it. It was for entertainment purposes only, but it was good for coffee table conversation, and the media picked up on it and we all had a lot of fun with it. In the lead up to the competition, they listed Joey Chestnut, who is the winner of twelve of the last thirteen iterations of the contest, as a huge favorite. Of course, the pandemic had affected the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contests. There was a new venue, a controlled environment with air conditioning, no fans or sun or possible inclement weather issues. The competitors were all socially distanced and separated by plexiglass. There are also fewer competitors than usual. This time there were six instead of the usual double digits of competitors in attendance. Now, don't go fully hog wild, or should I say, don't go fully hot dog wild. There are limitations on the kind of bets that you can make. New Jersey authorities have stipulated there can't be any live betting on the event, and the odds can only be on events directly tied to the competition, So, for example, you couldn't bet on the color of shoes that a particular guy would be wearing. Still, despite these restrictions, adding betting to the contest is a smart move. It makes it another event to fill up the vacuum that was left by the sudden halt of pretty much every other major American sport over the past four months. Avello says, surprisingly for us, things have gone much better than anticipated during the pandemic. We struggled for content early on, but we were able to find some things that stuck that our players seem to like. We're doing fine. Our second story today is literally monkey business. That's right. Carry Simmons, the fiancee of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has welcomed pledges by four different British retailers to stop selling coconuts that use get this monkey labor in their production. Carry Simmons is also urging other retailers to do the same. Here's what happened and investigation by Peter Asia showed the use of pigtailed macaws to harvest coconuts. The products made using this labor include some brands of coconut water and coconut milk. Tesco, which is Britain's largest retailer, said it's coconut products are not made using labor from monkeys. Carry Simmons is a conservationist and she was responding to a report in the UK paper The Telegraph that highlighted the use of these monkeys taken from the wild and Thailand and used on farms to scurry up the trees and harvest coconuts. Simon's got her message out via social media, tweeting quote glad Weight, Rose, co Op, Boots and Okado have vowed not to sell products that use monkey labor, while Morrison's has already removed these from its stores. She continued to call on other supermarkets to stop selling the products, and she named three major chains and now this tweet no longer exists or the account has been suspended. As Though, which is owned by parent company Walmart, said it was removing two specific brands, aeroy D and Chaco, from the sales floor while it was investigating the report along with its suppliers. In a statement, the company said, we expect our suppliers to hold up the highest production standards at all times, and we will not tolerate any forms of animal abuse in our supply chain. A spokesperson for Sainsbury weighed in as well, saying the company is actively reviewing as product ranges and also investigating the issue along with the help of Peter UK. The spokesperson for Tesco put a fine point on this, saying we don't tolerate these practices and would remove any product from sale that is known to have used monkey labor during production. Somewhere in the world. This monkey business continues our third story today. Some people hate flying. Some people love it, not just being in the plane, but the whole experience. Believe it or not, there are some people who miss going through security and waiting in line so bad that they're willing to go into an airport, get on a plane and just sit there. If you're one of these people. If your favorite part of taking any trip is actually going through the airport process, then you may be in luck. An airport based in Taiwan has recreated the experience of traveling to an airport to check in for a flight, go through security, and board the aircraft, just as if you're about to hit the friendly skies the catches that you don't I should mention the Taipei Songshan Airport began offering passengers a trip to nowhere earlier this month, and they received about seven thousand interested guests when they put the word out. Out of these seven thousand, the airport only chose sixty from the pool, and these sixty lucky I guess people went on half day airplane trips. Uh. These trips will continue for the next couple of weeks. Here's what happens. If you're one of the lucky ducks selected for this weird recreation of the flight experience, you will receive a fake boarding pass and then you'll continue through the actual security process you would encounter if you were taking an international flight. Taiwan has encouraged its citizens not to travel internationally at all unless there's a dire case of emergency. Once these guests are through security, and we can only hope that they passed security, they gather at their gate and they wait to board an airplane from China Airlines that's Taiwan's major carrier. Uh. Think of it kind of like Taiwan's version of Delta. And actually the island is considered renaming this company during the pandemic because it closely resembles the Chinese airline Air China. Of course, the people recreating this flight, we're not able to recreate the full pre pandemic experience. They had to practice safe social distancing, they had to wear mandated masks when they talked with flight attendants, and they admired the new safety measures the airport had installed due to the coronavirus Taiwan, we should also mention it was one of the places that reacted swiftly to the outbreak of COVID nineteen. They close their borders and proactively tested people. It's a self governed island off of mainland China, and despite its pretty large population, it's only had seven confirmed coronavirus related deaths. So let us know, would you participate in a contest that ultimately resulted and you going in a plane and just sitting there for a while. It sounds crazy at first, but to be honest, I'd consider it. That's all for now. We've been asking you to chime out with suggestions for stories you think your fellow listeners should know about. To hit us with your best or worst bad dad jokes, as well as your personal experience with COVID nineteen, the ongoing protests, or anything else strange happening in your neck of the Global Woods. Let us know tag hashtag strange daily on Twitter, or reach out to me directly. I'm at Ben Bowling hsw on Twitter or at Ben Bolan on Instagram. Thanks as always to our super producer Dylan Fagan, our research associate Sam T. Garden, and most importantly, thanks to you. I'm Ben Bullin. We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, stay strange.