The Derby Dead Pool is an online competition in which people guess which celebrities will meet their maker before the end of the year.

The rules require a competitor to select a team of twenty living celebrities; five points are then awarded for each successful prediction, less one point if they aged over 80 at death and plus one point if they under 50. Further bonus points are earned if the death is a suicide or if a competitor is the only one to choose that person, with double points if the particular dead celebrity is that competitor's joker selection. One little quirk is that the Derby Dead Pool definition of fame or celebrity requires that the death by confirmed by an obituary notice a British national newspaper or on the BBC News website.

The winner of each year's competition receives nothing at all, except an honurable mention on the website.

The competition has been running since 1996 and has been branded by the News of the World as the 'the sickest site on the net.' The 2005 competition boasts 124 teams from ten different countries. Honourable mention should go to the winner of the 2000 competition, an MT Graves, who despite their success failed to predict their own demise in that year.

www.derbydeadpool.co.uk/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/derby/content/articles/2005/01/31/derby_dead_pool_2005_feature.shtml

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