Get your corps bets in now!

Drum Corps International's summer marching season started this past weekend, and this first weekend's contests are behind us, but for the one time this season, scores are being held to be revealed tonight as DCI hits cinemas across the nation for the DCI Tour Premiere which has become the Daytona 500 of drum corps. With the additonal time, get your bets in now!

I'm kidding, of course. Injecting gambling in to drum corps or any activity with a standardized-but-still-subjective judging system is just asking for corruption. Add to that the fact that the wage scale for the performers tops (or bottoms) out somewhere in the negative thousands of dollars, I'm sure even the most principled of marching members could be tempted. Still, if betting were to become commonplace, I could see it working in a couple of different ways:

Horse style - this makes sense because any given competition features multiple competitors. You could head to the window for a Crown-Cavies-Cadets trifecta, or bet the odds on any given corps.

Point spread - this past year's World Championship saw The Cadets take home the gold with a score of 98.35 over the Blue Devils at 97.8, meaning that BD just missed covering a fictional spread of +0.5.

Over/Under - because corps get better as the season progresses, this one could be a bit of fun. For example, an over/under of 80 for the top of the order could garner some action in late June, as Crown and the Cadets were just crossing this threshold around this time.

Happy DCI season--don't bet it all in one place!