​Will Victoria General Hospital — where B.C.’s first baby of 2022 was born — again welcome the New Year’s baby? If you go by the B.C. Lottery Corp.’s odds, it doesn’t look likely.
Current odds on Victoria General Hospital — which welcomed the first baby of 2022 — are 11.00 on PlayNow.com, the B.C. government-owned gambling website. Bettors can make a wager on 23 B.C. hospitals.
As of Wednesday, B.C. Women’s Hospital in Vancouver was the odds-on favourite at 3.50, followed closely by Surrey Memorial Hospital at 5.00. New Westminster’s Royal Columbian Hospital, which had the province’s first baby in 2019 and 2020, was at 8.00.
Cowichan District Hospital and St. Joseph's in Comox were among those with the worst odds, at 50.00, while Nanaimo was at 31.00.
Other options include Vernon Jubilee Hospital (42.00), Kelowna General Hospital (18.00) and Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops (28.00).
The 2022 New Year’s baby — a baby boy born four minutes after midnight to Salt Spring’s Shawna White and Ishmael Grimwood — was born at Victoria General Hospital, while the first baby born in B.C. in 2021 came at 12:21 a.m. to Catherine Harrison and Darcy Doberstein at B.C. Women’s Hospital.
Wagers can be made until Saturday, Dec. 31, at 6 a.m.
— With file from Carol Eugene Park, Glacier Media
