Apparently there was some significant sporting event this weekend, does anybody know what it was? Anyway, the GDP of a small country probably changed hands in backroom deals and "magic square" betting and so on. Other things of high non-monetary value were probably also exchanged; I am betting more than one undesired haircut will be had over the next week or so. FOCUS: What do/have you bet on, monetarily or non-monetarily? What was your biggest/most embarrassing loss? What was your biggest win? Did you make your best friend go out to the bar in a tutu? Did you lose your rent money on a sure thing? Enquiring TiB minds would like to know.
OK, so my insomnia has set back in so I will relate a story. Back in the late 90's, me and all my friends would rent a motor-home and trailer our bikes to the Laughlin "River Run". For those that don't know that is one of the largest bike runs on the west coast. I had just gotten warned for my behavior (no helmet, eye protection, wife beater, shorts, and flip flops crossing it up through an intersection) Being told to get off the street I went into the Flamingo and started playing Roulette. I got so drunk that eventually I was making ridiculous bets. We had taken 1 girl with us (she's a guy inside a models body) The entire day she just kept going back and forth between all the boys. What I didn't realize at the time was that she was kiting my checks whenever my stack of black was high. I know I hit 22 strait up with a black on it at least twice. (7,200 for both) Typical booze hound, I gave it all back. Or so I thought. After staggering my way back to the RV and sleeping it off, I awoke to no money in my pockets. As did most of my boys. After scolding us she dumped her purse on the floor and all of our chips came pouring out. All said and done I ended up with 3500 when I only started with 100. She knew exactly how much belonged to each of us. Her words " someones got to look out for you stupid fuckers" It was awesome.
A few years ago, I won about 6k in a few day span of online poker (shortstacking hu plo, if you like jargon). I'd deposited about $300. I wound up cashing out half and losing the other half over the next few weeks (variance is a bitch). On the losing side, I'm fairly certain I've since had multiple days with 4 figure losses. PLO is swingy, but you can take that kind of variance when you're in college and don't have any real expenses except airline tickets and shiny trinkets. Despite having an actual income, I can't play that high anymore. As I mentioned on the Pop Culture board, I just won my first Oscars-related bet.
This was not one of my best moments. The sad thing is, it wasn't one of my worst either. Spoilered for length: Spoiler I'd organised to go on a first date with a girl I met off the internet. I'd seen pictures of the girl, but they were only head shots. I realised that was a bad omen, but I had nothing better to do than take a chance. The day of the date, I came down with a heinous fever. On a hundred degree day, I was wearing two layers, standing in front of the heater and shivering my ass off. I decide it's still a good idea to go*. I'm picking her up, so I get ready, take a bunch of painkillers and aspirin and hop in the car. When I turn up, the house looks like a bomb site. I ignore this and knock. When she opens the door, the smell nearly gnaws my face off. She's huge, missing a couple of teeth and starts to giggle inanely about how she should have tidied up. I smile charmingly, convinced I look very debonair in a heavy pair of jeans and long sleeve shirt, still shivering my ass off slightly. We get in the car. She nearly doesn't fit between the seat and the dashboard. I have no recollection of her name or the conversation; all I know is we're going to get a bite to eat and she wants to take me to some club. I manage to choke down most of dinner. She's looking at me and asking if I'm okay. I smile and reply sure, just a bit under the weather... let's go to the club. It turns out to be a swingers club. This does not phase my pickled brain. They've got a pool table and porn on the big tv.... it's better than home. The night's still fairly early and not many people have turned up, so she suggests we play some pool. I'm down for that. At the very least it allows me to lean on the cue and stop swaying. After a couple of games, she racks the balls up and suggests we "make it interesting". I ask, "how?" "We could bet something on the game. What do you think?" I've got half an eye on the porn still playing, and some blonde chick is trying to inhale a big black pork sword. "Sure," I reply, "how about head jobs?" Her eyes light up and she wholeheartedly agree. Somewhere in my head, I rationalise that this would be preferable to sex with the garbage heap as it would appear this is why she had me here. I then giggle slightly, knowing that in my current state there's no way I could get it up anyway. I then proceed to beat her five to nil. Of course, given her enthusiasm for the stake, I would hazard to guess that she may have deliberately played under her potential. Either way, I win five headjobs. Yay, me. She's looking pretty intently at me and I ask why. "You've gone very pale." I definitely do not feel well. I imagine I look worse as she's now encouraging me to take her home. I reason this would not be for the purposes of getting biblical with me, as the club had warmed up by this stage and there were a number of couples making the pussy do the dog already. We leave and I drop her home. Despite her apparent concern, she still wants me to come in. I stand in her doorway swaying slightly and say that no, I really should go home to bed (my best idea of the night). I thank her for a wonderful time, apologise for my state of health and leave. I then spend several days in bed until the fever breaks, piecing back together what the fuck had happened. She'd sent me a couple of emails asking if I was alright, and fearing I was dead. I responded that I wasn't, but I was really sick, and that I'd talk to her later. That never happened. I've still got 5 headjobs out there waiting for me, though. * Although, in my defence, I submit that this decision and the ones that came after were the result of high fever and not those of a man thinking with a rational mind. Making a long story short in one line: Spoiler Got really sick with fever, went out with a no star and won a bet... earning five headjobs I've never had any intention of claiming.
I have a running bet that if the Bengals win the Super Bowl, I will shave my head. I will leave it shaved for the duration that the Bengals are Super Bowl Champions. Example; if the Bengals win the Super Bowl next year, my head will be shaved from February 2012 until February 2013 at the earliest (unless the world ends on 12/21/12, in which case my shaved head would be the least of my concerns).
I've seen the damages of rampant betting (thanks to former collegues). I've made it my personal policy to never bet more than 2$ on anything pseudo-random. 5$ on something that I know ( for sure) that i am right ( as in, it's not a bet, at least for me)
I don't care for spiders much and I now own a tarantula due to not thinking a friend would hold one. You must remain a man of your word...
Let's just say that the New York Times Review of Books has never hailed my tax returns as "brutally honest."
I've been bitten by the gambling bug again. Fuckin interwebs. Biggest loss was when I was in high school and bet wayyyyyy the fuck more than I could afford on the Indians winning the World Series. Best bet, biggest win was hitting a 10 game NFL parlay this year with the Seahawks capping it off with something like a +450 moneyline. Cha-ching. I also played craps drunk off my ass a few weeks ago and raked in some cash. Lost half back to the Indians playing blackjack and roulette but I still walked away a winner.
On our honeymoon my wife won $70 on the penny slots; that held us up for the rest of the trip. If I gamble, it's on $5 max blackjack, or penny/nickle slots. I've done roulette a few times, hedging all my bets and playing really safe. I can usually stay at the wheel for a while and break even. Gambling, for me, is all about the entertainment; I'm highly calculating and risk-averse in nature, so whenever I'm in a casino I keep a running mental "tab" on how much I'm willing to pay for entertainment and weak drinks, and how much I've lost in the casino. Non-monetary bets, however, are different. I'm usually very drunk when I make them, they're almost always rediculously lopsided against me, and because I'm drunk, I rarely, if ever, win. Losing bets I have: worn my wife's booty shorts for a day; taken a 50/50 shot of balsamic vinegar and tobasco; mohawk for a week; 100 yard creek swim in winter; streaking, too many times to count; punch to the face; ridden a longhorn cow; free-style rapped for 2 minutes; streaking, winter; pretended to have an orgasm; way too many "make the worst thing you can think of" liquor shots. In fact, I've taken so many little-of-everything shots, sans chasers, that I'm basically immune to the standard effects of the barmat shot. Or at least I can take one with minimal swearing after... it's a great way to get free drinks.
My first time playing roulette I hit it big. I was at Harrah's and I had just finished playing blackjack. I was up a little bit and my friend was already out so I decided to leave the table. As we were getting ready to leave the casino I decided I would play roulette because I had never played before. I was up something like $20 so I decided to place one $10 bet and leave. I get to the table, get ten one dollar chips and place them all on 19 red. I placed them all on 19 red because that year one of my boyhood idols Steve Yzerman retired. So I put my chips down, ball goes around the wheel really exciting right? Well I'm getting ready to leave because I wasn't even paying attention because I had absolutely no expectations of winning. Then the dealer puts the idol on my chips and asks me if I want them in big chips. Big chips? Hell yea I want them in big chips. Apparently my first time ever playing roulette I hit big and hardly even noticed. I got my chips and walked away from the table and cashed out. Me and my friend celebrated by drinking high class booze the rest of the night.
I try to gamble on the big sporting events because otherwise, I really don't care about who wins or loses. I'm lame, so it's usually with the girlfriend. Some highlights of what I've won: -Shaving her man-hole. -Mile high club What I've lost (thanks steelers): -I have to take her to a hockey game. I was going to get a visit to the strip club.
I walked away with $1600 on a hold-em game with initial buy-in of $100 and two re-buys with max being whatever the chip-lead had. Poker is really the only type of gambling I do, I just don't have the spare change lying around any more. I got pretty decent after playing almost every night for six months in afghanistan.
I did pretty good on the big game this year, my issue is that if I'm going to put money into bookmaker, I'm going to make a bunch of stupid bets too. So I slipped $100 in there, and proceeded to bet 75 on the game, and 25 on stupid shit. Like... The fucking Oscars. There's some fun in placing a $5 bet on a longshot to see if you can turn it into $100, like my bet on The Fighter winning best picture or best director for David O Russell. It probably won't win, but I got more than my money back on the game, so whatever. Also, last week when I was placing my super bowl bet, it was a night where there were 6 NHL games, I did a parlay on every game, picking the favorite -1.5, so if each favorite won by 2, I would turn $5 into $3,650 or something along those lines. 4 of them one by 2, the other 2 won by 1. So close, but no.
Interested in ridiculous bets? Ashton Griffin bet his roommate Haseeb Qureshi that he (Ashton) would be able to run 70 miles in 24 hours. And he put up 900k of his own money. Giving Qureshi 3-1 odds. He won with about 45 minutes to spare. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.rakerace.com/news/poker-players/ashton-griffin-wins-crazy-prop-bet-runs-70-miles-in-24h/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.rakerace.com/news/poker-play ... es-in-24h/</a>
The strangest thing about this bet is that someone with 900k to spare has a roommate. *insert gay jokes, aids keeping him from finishing, etc*
They're both professional online poker players; they tend to live together to party/discuss strategy/not be so gosh-darned lonely all the time.
Ahh betting, my purest love. In brief: Lost a drunken bet on whether a friend could fuck two particular women in 24 hours, had to sing the song from Aladdin 'A Whole New World' in front of all my friends. Won $400 flipping coins against a friend. Won US$2100 playing poker on a cruise ship against drunken Ukrainians. My housemate lost a $1000 drunken bet, on a drunken submission wrestling match between our other housemate who is a well trained BJJ (and boxing, muay thai, etc) practitioner (6'3, 90kg), and a friend, a 6'8, 200kg+ tub o lard with no training at all. The friend choked him out with a standing guillotine and accidentally broke 2 ribs when he landed on my housemate. And this was on my housemate's birthday. Expensive night all round. Currently have $1700, split against 3 different friends, on making it to Las Vegas on July 4th 2012. Friends have bet me $400 that I can't sleep with a particular girl. Half of that $400 comes from the girl's housemate, who is tired of said girl being cranky as a result of not having sex for 3 years. Best bet: anal with a new, prudish girlfriend, based on how many pieces of ID were required to sign up for a VideoEzy membership. Worst bet: not me, but an incredibly drunk friend of mine, 'A'. Made a bet with another friend, B, that he could wind up a third friend, C's, girlfriend to the point where she would never come back to our house. Very awkward. Other notable bets: ringing up a friend and asking him who fucked a particular girl first, him or his housemate. Turns out he didn't know his housemate had been there. Betting $100 that a slutty friend would fuck over 10 guys in a month long trip to the US, lost that. Oh, and winning a bet against a married couple I know that the groom's younger brother would fuck the bride's best friend, in their house, while they were on holiday. In other news, I frequently bet on other people's sex lives in lieu of improving my own. What can I say, I'm lazy.
I'm not a big cash better by any stretch of the imagination. I've only made one big bet, and that was a few years ago. I was in my final novice race, and the novice championship came down to either me or this other guy. He was good, had a faster and more modern car than I did, brought in an ex-F1 mechanic as his crew chief, and was a blow hard. I bet him a grand that I'd beet him in our final race to win the championship, and even gave him pole position for the race. This was intentional as his mental game sucked, and mine was really good after years of training and practice in other sports. The bet, combined with me being in his rear view mirror for the start of the race, was enough to cause him to fuck up bad. I got a half lap lead on him and he never caught up or got back into it. I donated the winnings to the volunteer corner workers fund, and won the $5 trophy.