The body of Pope John Paul II was still lying in state, with 18,000 mourners an hour filing past, when betting parlors started posting odds on his successor.

Yes, not only could you wager -- in person or online -- on who would be chosen the next pope, you also could put money on what the next papal name would be.

"John Paul" was running 5 to 2 odds. "Blessed Innocent" was 40 to1. "Sixtus" was 66 to 1.

"Believe me, I thought some of the names had to be a joke at first," says Barni Evans, marketing director of the Dublin betting company Paddy Power. "But we didn't just pull them out of the air. We searched back through the annals of papal history for all the names ever used by the pope."

After all, Evans insists, Paddy Power is a "good Catholic company."

But let's say you're fuzzy on papal protocol. Not to worry -- if betting on the next pope proves nothing else, it validates the maxim that people will indeed bet on anything.

And they apparently have since the beginning of time.

"It is sometimes called the second oldest profession," says Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada-Reno. "There are stories of finding dice made out of the ankle bones of sheep in Egyptian tombs."

At the crucifixion of Jesus, Roman soldiers cast lots to see who would get his garments.

In ancient China, men gambled on cricket fighting, their bugs battling to the death. Weird as that may sound, it gets weirder.

Last November, police in Shanghai smashed an illegal gambling ring that took bets on cricket fighting, confiscating $220,000. The crickets were not only starved before the bouts to make them more aggressive; news reports say the bugs also were given drugs to fix the fights' outcome -- raising the prickly issue of whether they will be banned from the Insects Hall of Fame.

So is it human nature to want to bet?

In some ways, yes, says Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University. Though certain people are too thrifty or cautious to enjoy gambling, the lure of getting money and bragging rights for nothing more than a good guess is too strong for a lot of folks to resist.

"And something like correctly guessing the successor to the pope carries with it intellectual cachet," Thompson says. "You know, we use the phrase 'it's like a College of Cardinals' to mean something totally mysterious and unpredictable, so if you can win on that action, that's pretty cool."

Besides, says Cocoa Beach resident Steve Rooks, a 49-year-old respiratory therapist, placing a bet spices things up. It makes games more exciting -- or wrenching -- to watch, and it gives you a sense of participation even as a spectator.

Rooks recently ventured online to wager on a poker tournament, eventually losing $750.

"I wanted to go to the Internet and put some money on the pope," he says, "but maybe now isn't the best time for me. It hurt to lose that $750, but what hurt more was having to explain it to the wife."