Irish bookmaker Paddy Power said today it would start taking bets tomorrow on the likely successor to Pope John Paul.
Paddy Power has been offering odds on who will be the new Pope for several years but suspended betting yesterday after the Pontiff's death.
"We've taken it down for 24 hours as a mark of respect," a Paddy Power spokesman said.
The spokesman said the group had taken some 1,500 to 2,000 bets on the future Pope.
The highest bet so far has been €1,000 on bookies' favourite Dionigi Tettamanzi at 5-1, but most of the bets taken have been small sums.
Odds on 71-year-old Tettamanzi being Pope now stand at 5-2.
Cardinal-archbishop of Milan, Tettamanzi is top of the list of Italian candidates to succeed Pope John Paul II.
Nigeria's Francis Arinze is the punters' second choice at 11-4, followed by Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras at 4-1 and then Germany's Joseph Ratzinger at 7-1.
shortened on George Pell after an Australian radio station campaigned to improve their countryman's rankings from 150-1. Odds on him being the next Pope now stand at 40-1.
This has left Jose Maria Rouco Varela of Spain the outside - genuine - candidate at 80-1, although you can bet on Father Dougal of hit TV series Father Tedbecoming Pope at 500-1.
Paddy Power said the company shortened the odds after a flurry of bets came in at the original odds of 100,000-1.