Hawkings bet about 'naked singularities' .. solved ?

Hawking conceded. But Penrose was on his side, sort of. The "opposing team" was Dr. John P. Preskill and Dr. Kip S. Thorne -- see link.

As for actual naked singularity, no one has seen one yet, so all that was conceded was that some objections ruling them out are not considered valid.

It would not be the first time that Hawking has retraced statements. All of science agrees that a singularity existed at the beginning of the big bang, they are unable to detrmine what the singularity was made up of during it's 10-43 of a second. I am of the opinion that this period of time represented the life span of the singularity before it began to expand into time and space.

I don't even want to see a naked singularity...I mean...get some clothes on for God sakes.

I personally think you can be so deep into mathematics, that you can loose common sense...Those guys don't have a clue on what they're betting on...I think Black Holes stay the same until the Big Crunch.