A closer look
When undercover journalist Nellie Bly decided to beat the fictional 80-day circumnavigation record in 1889, her employer, Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, saw a brilliant monetization scheme. They didn't just report on her travel logistics; they turned her voyage into a massive public betting pool. Nearly a million readers submitted guesses for her exact arrival time down to the second. Bly’s grueling race across monsoons and delayed steamers was essentially a PR stunt that doubled as a legal, large-scale gambling operation.
