As Castro Starts Recovery, Gambling Website Takes Thousands of Bets From Exiles on When He Will Die

Internet betting sites are offering odds on when Fidel Castro, the Cuban president, will die, as members of the Cuban government report that his condition is stable and he is recovering from an intestinal operation.

The Costa Rica-based BetUS.com gambling site claimed yesterday that it had taken "thousands" of bets, mainly from the Miami area, where the largest population of Cuban exiles live. They are offering odds on what day the Cuban leader, who will be 80 on August 13, will die.

"We do not normally offer bets on deaths," Mike Foreman, a spokesman for the website, said yesterday, "but we figured this was a unique occasion because it's about international politics.

"We knew there was a lot of interest in it." He said the sums involved had been small. "Typically, on these novelty bets we have a limit of $500 [£262] and most of the bets are around $100."

Other betting sites have steered away from offering odds on the date of a death on the grounds of taste, but are inviting wagers on whether the man who has led Cuba for 47 years will reappear before his birthday.

"Many of us were amazed at Castro's staying power but he's no Stonehenge," said Mickey Richardson of betCRIS.com. "Every reign has an end point and it would appear that Castro's is fast approaching."

His company is offering odds of 13/1 against Mr Castro appearing in public before his birthday and 17/1 on that he will not appear. It decided not to allow bets on whether he would be dead by then.

In Havana, members of the government said Mr Castro was recovering from surgery. "We are rising up to meet the stature of this young man of 80 years who, convalescing from a complicated operation, still made the effort to adopt measures to assure that we are capable of confronting any aggression," said Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the assembly, in a statement to the newspaper Granma.

In a message issued after his operation, Mr Castro said: "I feel sorry for having caused so much concern and bother to our friends in the world."

Granma also reported that Raúl Castro, Fidel's brother, was "firmly at the helm" of the country. It has also been reported that Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, is considering a visit to Cuba.