Hawking bets CERN mega-machine won't find 'God's Particle':
"The LHC will increase the energy at which we can study particle interactions by a factor of four. According to present thinking, this should be enough to discover the Higgs particle," Hawking told BBC radio.
"I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of 100 dollars that we won't find the Higgs," added Hawking, whose books including "A Brief History of Time" have sought to popularise study of stellar physics.
http://www.physorg.com/news140161003.html
$100 is not that much money so Hawking is probably not all that confident. But on the other hand, he put his reputation on the table. What's your take?