With a bit of foresight and a decent amount of luck, a small-time internet investor can rake in an absurd amount of dough through ‘domain squatting’. It’s a pretty clever tactic—register a catchy, original domain name (one that’s based on a current event, pop culture icon, or spelled like a popular, existing site), then you wait and wait until offers start to come in from people/companies that absolutely insist on having your domain name as their own. Fairly Simple. Just don’t do what one California-based domain squatter did, and register a domain name based on the perfect season that your favorite team was supposed to have. FAIL!

New Englanders weren’t the only fans banking on a Patriots Super Bowl victory on Sunday. Last night, a California-based domain squatter faced disappointment as his auction for 19-0.com ticked down to a close with no bidders.

The auction might have had more success if the Patriots indeed won instead of cementing an 18-1 record for their season, but even then takers would have probably been sparse. The auction had a starting bid of $19,000 and a “Buy It Now” price of $150,000, pricing it out of the range of all but the most dedicated Patriots fan (or most unbelievably spiteful Giants fan). In modern Internet vernacular, the best term with which to describe this auction would be “Epic Fail.”

eBay user “brucard” isn’t quitting, though. While he hasn’t reposted an auction for 19-0.com, he just put up an auction for 17-0.com.

[via Crave]