when i was eleven...
i'd just finished reading such arcane,predictive nonsense as The Bible Code,The Predictions of Saint Malachy and The Book of Revalation.
Filled with a youthful swagger i bounced up to one of my mates,a similar anarchic delinquent called Bob (let's be honest,we were both as anarchic as Rik from The Young Ones) and coughed for attention.
"Bob,' I said in my best McWhirter,did-you-know,it-is-a-little-known-fact voice,sounding like the smug little bookwormy shit I was,
"did you know that in 2045,the world will be devoured by fire,california will sink into the sea,the last pope will turn out to be a genocidal maniac and the beast shall awaken and eat people with each of his ten heads,and it will all be slightly uncool?"
(I'm making it up,I have no idea what the actual prophecies were,luckily I don't keep such grandstanding fatuous bullshit in my head anymore).
He fixed me with a smouldering gaze.Not that eleven-year-olds can do that smouldering, Humphrey-Bogart look,it was probably like Danny deVito pretending to be Arnold Swarzenegger.
"Oh yeh?" he opined.
"Yeh," I swaggered. "Want to place a bet on it?"
"Alright," he sneered. "If you're right,I'll suck off Kevin,the fattest kid in school.And if you're wrong,you'll do the same."
"Deal."
So I'm stuck in a quandary now.I frankly feel that having the world enter the end of days and be destroyed by the beast will be better than giving a blowjob to a fifty-year-old,wrinkly,sagging fatso.Has anyone made similar bets?How do I get out of it?
(Fuckpig "That's not even a pound a midget.", Fri 8 May 2009, 12:01, 7 replies)

Naked Canal Jump always gets the party started !
It was a mate of mines Stag do.. we were sat outside a dirty old pub that happened to be next to the canal.

For some reason, things just weren't firing on all cylinders like a Stag do should, so I posed the question..

"I bet there have been a few people jump in there when they were pissed" ! ..and suddenly there it was, a mate said "I will give you £20 if you do it.. There were about 10 in the group so I said "I'll do it if everybody puts in £20".

So after the cash was laid down, I found myself walking round the corner, away from the busy road, to strip naked. WTF was I thinking..!! You can't back out now I thought..and what's worse..I was stone cold sober!

Best get it over with.. so with a giant leap in the air..I divebombed into the mucky brown filth that was the canal, to much cheering and laughing. As I resurfaced, I screamed like a girl.. It was so fucking cold! My nuts weren't going to return in a hurry..that much I'd gathered..It also turned out that the water was only 5ft deep, with a good foot or so of muddy silt at the bottom, and as I plunged in, a broken bottle cut my foot open.

Of course, when I returned to the canal bank, my clothes had been nicked.. so I sat on the wall, naked as the day, while passers by gave me proper dirty looks.

I eventually got my clothes back, and scurried into the pub to warm myself under the hand dryers. The party picked up nicely after that, and the next day, the video was put on You Tube. "Something nice to show the Grandkids" I thought to myself.
(TheRiddler Hmmmmm... I concur., Fri 8 May 2009, 11:53, 1 reply)

EuroMillions
Everybody at work's convinced our syndicate is going to win the EuroMillons jackpot tonight. Which would be nice, if a bit unlikely.

To put into perspective just how unlikely, I've just worked out that winning the jackpot with one ticket is equivalent to spinning a Wheel of Fortune the same height as me, and landing on a winning strip about 80 nanometres wide.

Will still be checking those numbers though.
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Fri 8 May 2009, 11:38, 6 replies)

Foolish self-bet
I never really needed much persuasion to do something stupid. I'm more sensible these days, but as a lad, I would pad out the days by setting myself little challenges. Such as the day I crammed a slice of bread into my mouth in one go.

'Hmm', I think, 'I bet I can get another one in there'. And putting my dough where my mouth was, I fitted deed to thought.

It turned out to be quite difficult to chew two pieces of bread at once. In fact, it was rather difficult to breathe as well. I started to show a certain amount of surprise and concern about the issue, while my friends looked on in interest. 'He's turning purple', one said. 'Should we do something about it?'

And then with one almighty chew and a bit of back-of-the-throat action (my years of training eating spaghetti without using my teeth came in handy here), a small bolus broke off and made its way into my throat, fortunately down the correct pipe. That gave me the purchase I needed, and within a little while the whole brace of mother's pride was gone and I was victorious.

Everyone shrugged and went back to their food. There wasn't a lot to be said.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Fri 8 May 2009, 11:35, Reply)

SEA OF VOM
The recent outbreak of piggy sniffles reminded me of the bet I made with one of my delinquent gang of halfwits that led to the closure of my school and cautionary letters being sent out to every parent advising them not to panic.

My mate Toots, Paul Toothill, would do just about anything for a fiver. He was the source of hours of endless entertainment – getting Toots to perform like the poorly shaved orangutan he was proved even more enjoyable than trudging home at dinner time and wanking over reruns of Sesame Street - there was just something strangely alluring and at the same time slutty about Grundgetta Grouch (Oscar's hot girlfriend) wasn't there?

Anyway; back to Toots. During the lunch break, sat round in the canteen eating reconstituted shit with added shit on the side, smeared in shit, with a choice of shit to sprinkle on this medley of spectacular shit that passed as food, a bet occurred to me.

“Toots,” I said. “Would you eat some of my shit for a fiver?”

Toots raised his big ginger head and pondered for a moment. Then he shrugged and said matter-of-factly: “For a fiver? ‘Course!” You could do a shitload in Coventry with a fiver back then – you could purchase more glue than you could sniff in a month, or if you went to Mr. Patel’s corner shop you could acquire one of his under the counter, fruity as fuck Swedish jazz mags and still have change for a Cornetto.

But there was a problem. I didn’t have a shit brewing. My colon was emptier than Gary Glitters spunk sack at a Toys R Us January sale. “I’m running on empty at the minute, Toots. Should be able to sort something out by afternoon break.”

Toots actually sighed despondently – the lad was a real trooper and really, really wanted to eat my shit.

Thankfully, my mate Greg who was sat on the same table piped up: “I’ve got a doozy brewing.” Toots and I turned to Greg. He stared back at us with an evil grin on his mong-twat face: “Ohh, it’s a biggun…”

So, moments later Toots and I are in the crowded schoolyard, kicking our heels, waiting for Greg to birth his steamy backdoor baby. After a few minutes Greg appears cradling something in one of those cheap scratchy paper towels you get in school toilets.

“This is fucking great!” He declared as he passes the paper towel and its contents over to Toots.

Toots unwraps it like he’s about to attack a kebab after ten pints. And stating us in the face is the biggest, hardest, longest turd I have ever seen in my life. It was so fucking big if it’d been fired out of a torpedo tube it would’ve easily sunk the Bismark.

“Fuck me…” was all I could say.

Obviously, this after-dinner delicacy had received the attention of several other kids in the yard. A small crowd had gathered. Toots examined the turd for a moment, considering the best way to tackle it, and then in one swift motion he brought it up to his mouth and took a healthy bite - chunks of sweetcorn and all - and chewed with his mouth open for all to see.

Then he doubled over and vomited heroically.

And then Greg vomited.

And then I vomited.

And then a weird chunder chain reaction occured as several other kids round us, upon seeing this unholy sight of skat delight and having only just eaten their fill in the canteen, opened up and technicolour yawned, Exorcist-style, all over the schoolyard. All you could hear for several minutes was the retching and splashing of puke hitting concrete, and the dry heaves as pupils emptied the contents of their stomachs in a slick of chunky, stinky, acrid vom.

It was like that scene at the start of Saving Private Ryan – only instead of bombs and bullets; there were chunks of carrot and half digested spotted dick and custard splattered amoungst the walking wounded.

It looked like someone had set off a hand grenade in a HUGE fucking vat of pig swill.

It was awesome.

And when the deputy head happened to glance out his office window to see a schoolyard full of vomiting boys. He rushed downstairs as fast as his stumpy little legs could carry him and closed the canteen immediately. Then he rounded us up and sent us home with a quickly composed letter apologizing to our parents for the dodgy food which he assumed had caused the yellow-and-brown mouth shitting outbreak.

And Toots didn’t get his fiver.

Though everyone in our year group got the next day off school.

The cunt Toots didn’t eat any of Greg’s remarkable turd of the Century. He only managed to chew it for a bit before gobbing it out.

And, as they say, a bet’s a bet…

...I just felt sorry for the poor caretaker who turned up, whistling, with a broom and a solitary bucket of sawdust; scanned the sea of vom sloshing about in the schoolyard and very nearly shat himself.

EDIT: Toots now works as a bank manager in Coventry city centre. I don't imagine he mentioned his amazing shit eating endevours during that interview...

( SpankyHanky, Fri 8 May 2009, 11:28, 18 replies)

‘VEGAS BABY’! We shouted pretty much the entire way there...
...In our heads we had all come to the conclusion we were going to ‘win big’ and dive onto the roulette tables at every given opportunity. The guys had mental images of the film Swingers and how they would be ‘so money’, the girls, well… the girls were more interested in the pools and the cocktails… me, I was pretty excited about the amount of steak I was going to consume and Mountain Dew! Ahhhh Mountain Dew!

Problem was I didn’t really understand the tables and was too scared to get involved and end up looking like a knob so I stuck to the Blackjack games which were sunk into every bar in our hotel. This did work pretty well in my favour as I ended up leaving Vegas on the up… about $10! Wooo!

So that’s the gambling side of Vegas but the far more entertaining side was wandering down the strip. Now you do assume that Vegas is going to be full of nutters and also full of prostitutes, its just common sense to think that where there is lots of booze and money there will be some sort of prostitution going down… and there was… LOTS.

Walking down the strip anytime from 10.00am onwards you’ll get confronted by quite a few ‘working girls’ and their pimps, I was prepared for this. What I wasn’t prepared for however were the hoards of guys and girls in red t-shirts covered in the words GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS. Now these guys spend their days flicking business card-sized bits of porn into peoples faces. No one is safe, you could quite obviously be with your family wandering around with your tiny son or daughter by your side and you’ll still get the card flickage in your face – its odd.

Anyhoo a group of us were wandering along gently confused by the men and their flicking, clicking cards. Two of the guys with us decided to mimic the card action and stared making clicking noises and throwing their hands around the place when all of a sudden we heard this guy speak rather loudly to one of my friends ‘Sir, if you don’t like pimps and hoes you should have gone to Vermont’… wise and rather humorous words indeed.

Has anyone else experienced the flicky card men in Vegas??
(Flim-Flam the Magnificent "You is talking loco and I like it!", Fri 8 May 2009, 11:23, 3 replies)

James Bond
Pisses me off. He's always winning in games of pure chance like Baccarat. Sample line:

'The odds favour staying put'
*raised eyebrow* 'If you play the odds'

Of course you play the odds, you dipshit. If you don't, you lose even more.

Reminds me of a story from Richard Feynman, where he met a professional gambler and said 'how can you make a living gambling? Surely in the long run the house always wins'. The guy replied 'I don't play against the house, I make side bets by finding people who are saying things like "I need a four" and I say "I'll give you 3 to 2 you don't make it". I know the odds better than them, and in the long run, I come out ahead'. Ie, find suckers who don't 'play the odds', and take them for everything they have.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Fri 8 May 2009, 11:15, Reply)

I am not a brave gambler...
...and when I gamble, I am often foolish, drunk and pantless. (Note: one of these may not actually be true).

A few years ago a visit to the classy surroundings of the local Gala Casino (part Gala Casino, part Travelodge) was quite a regular occurrence on either a Sunday night on a bank holiday or a Thursday night when I had a half day on the Friday. One of my friends was a member, but I wasn't. He always somehow persuaded me, usually after several drinks, that parting company with £100 or so was a very good idea. So, I tagged along.

Getting in was the first tricky part - I was a guest and guests were allowed in under a members membership - but only once and you then had to become a member. Your photo was taken in the foyer by an overhead spy camera or something and you filled in your details. After about 6 visits I was myself, my twin brother, my evil doppelganger, an Australian tourist and a deaf-mute.

My fourth visit in a two month period was on a Thursday night. I was hideously drunk when we arrived at the Casino at 2.00am - somehow, they let me in - that said, they probably thought that in my condition I was going to just be gambling recklessly and I'd lose loads.

I started badly - I'd taken £100 in with me and was £40 down on the roulette tables after about 5 minutes. My friend told me to chill out, take a seat have a few cokes and be sensible. I asked him how he was doing - he was £150 down. He was out of money. But, he helped me start winning on the roulette machines. Ten minutes later, I'd won back £20.

At 3.00am, he disappeared and didn't return. It was then that I sat down at the Carribean Poker table - no skill involved, just one draw, you stay in or you lose your stake and you win based on your hand. Simple.

3.30am...I get back to my original £100.
4.00am...I'm £50 up. I decided to double my stake.
4.30am...Change of croupier....£150 up....I'm just getting brilliant hands....as are my fellow gamblers.
5.00am...£250 up....I am on a roll.

When they kicked me out at 6.00am, I was £550 up. The others at the table are all up. I get outside....it's light, the sun is out and I've got a shitload of cash in my pocket. I go home, shower, go to work and brag about it.

Sunday night, back down the casino with my Aussie act and I lost every single penny and another £80 trying to get it back. I haven't been back since.....
(lo-fi_shop_assistant, Fri 8 May 2009, 11:15, Reply)

I'm playing poker tonight
The thing is, I know the basics from TV. I'm an excellent mathematician, and I imagine it will be hard to guess what sort of hand I'm holding because I have a short attention span, and will probably be thinking about tits instead of cards.

But I've not really played, so I am going to need to have terms like "buy in" explained to me. Also I don't really know which hands are better than which.

There's a chance I'm a natural born hustler.


(Big blind, little blind, fishy fishy card-board)
(teebie jeebie, Fri 8 May 2009, 11:06, 3 replies)

'A bet's a bet'
College Bar, 2002, about 9:30 in the evening after a long day on the sauce. Packed, sweaty, smoke-fugged... the odour of cigarette smoke occasionally giving way to a hint of sweat and beer spilt from plastic glasses. 'Bring the Noise' on the jukebox on heavy rotation with the other favourites, 'Ace of Spades' and 'Welcome to the Jungle'. God I miss it...

Anyway, it's me and my housemates with some friends of ours and their housemates, two of whom are fairly good-looking girls. A few of us have decided to play darts even though we're now so uncoordinated that in a bar this busy we're putting other drinkers in serious peril by even trying to to toss the tungsten.

Anyway, we're playing doubles and eventually, finally, after much terrible darts, we get down to a score where we can potentially checkout. However, it's 50. Shit.

I know have a massive mental block on the bull, so I try and get a 10 to take it down to double 20, but I hit outside the rim three times. One shot doesn't even hit the backboard and I have to pull the dart out of the wood of the window pane. I'm starting to think I need to go home after this game's done.

My partner Dave steps up to the oche, and looks at the board for a long moment.

'Bullseye... I'll have that. In fact, I'll have it first shot.'

Everyone reacts, even people near enough to hear who aren't in the game. No one believes he can do this. He's a good player, but he's so far gone that when he took his previous shot he actually had to lean on me to steady himself. Inevitably, bets are offered.

'Tenner says you can't'
'I'll buy you a shot if you do.'
'No fucking way - no way. tenner says no'
'If you get that, I'll shag you'

Now, the last one's got his interest, since it's one of the girls who live with our mates. The other one pipes up...

'Ha - me too.'

It's quickly established that he has no money so will not actually accept any financial bets, but the girls are still joking with him about the shag.

'So if I get it, we're off, right?'
'Yeah. of course. If you can get that you'll deserve it.'

He shrugs, he turns to the board. There's a pause as he adjusts slightly, but you can tell he's in the mode. If you've played darts, you'll know you can't be too methodical - you spend too long thinking about your shot and it kills you. You have to just take a moment then go with it - any second-guessing is fatal.

He brings the dart up and throws in one liquid motion and it seems like an age as everyone swings their line of sight from the man to the board. There it is. Bullseye.

Everyone is laughing, clapping, offering drinks, but even though the deed is done, he's still in a different mode. He looks at the board for a second then turns round to face us.

'You and you, get your coats, now.'

They're laughing. Everyone's laughing. Except him. He's not laughing. He walks over to the girls.

'Seriously, we're leaving'
'Ha - come on, we'll get you a drink.
'No time'
'Come on, the night is young. Have a pint'
'I won a shag'
'It was only a joke mate'
'It might have been to you, but a bet's a bet....'

Shit. He's serious. What now?

The laughter has subsided. Most people have gone back to their chats after the drama, but there's a small crowd of us standing around in awkward silence, then he states his case.

'A bet's a fucking bet, and if you're not both sucking my cock in the next half hour, you're fucking liars. So we're leaving.'
'Erm...'
'You coming?'
'Erm...no, I don't think we are.'
'Oh, fuck you both then.'

And he went home. Next day, no mention of this and apparently no recollection when we brought it up.

The girls didn't come out with us again....
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 8 May 2009, 11:04, Reply)

*odds*
The chances of having a severe mental illness are one in a hundred.

How lucky am I, eh?

( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 8 May 2009, 11:02, 2 replies)

Gambling not with money
14 months ago, I filled my car with everthing it would carry. I left a rented house filled with my own furntiture, books and clothes behind. Anything I coudn't carry in one trip I left behind.
I posted the keys through the landlords door, fuck the deposit!
And moved 200 miles down south to Cardiff to start a new life with someone I had known for 5 months.
SO far its going well and we are getting Married in a couple of weeks time.
I could have lost everthing and had to return with nothing and my tail between my legs.
I didn't it was a gamble and the most extrme thing in 37 years that ive ever done and its paid off handsomley.
(Gru being trolled since 1998, Fri 8 May 2009, 10:59, 5 replies)

Idiot
I know someone that puts a single line on the lottery every week, their numbers are 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28.

When I told my work colleagues this they laughed and said that the chances of 6 consecutive numbers coming up were practically zero.

When I then explained that the chances of these 6 consecutive numbers coming up were exactly the same as any of the 6 numbers that they had picked, or any of the 'random' lucky dips they looked at me as though I was an idiot.

I am an idiot, but very occasionally a correct idiot.

BTW I have also now started doing the same numbers as my friend. He once said that if he wins with the numbers he would give me half of the jackpot. I now stand to win 3/4 of the jackpot, assuming he still gives me half of his.

Also assuming that the two of us are the only people with these numbers.

Also assuming that you bastards out there aren't now going to put the same numbers on.

Bugger, bugger, bugger, should never have posted this.
( insignificantsnivellinglittleturd I Like Peas, Fri 8 May 2009, 10:51, 7 replies)

The Pav
Personally I try to avoid gambling. Mostly because I’m not good at it, I never recognise when I’m chasing the win, I have no self-control. Whenever I gamble I often spend much more than I’m willing to lose, so I stay away as much as possible, despite enjoying it. Mix it with alcohol and I could shovel 3 figures into a fruit machine, given half a chance.

That’s a bit apocalyptic, as I’m by no means a fully-fledged gambling addict, I’m just your average stupid punter. But the reason I stay away is because I know what it can turn into. At the end of my GCSEs, I had the epic 10-week summer everyone gets, and being an aspiring young Rook I chose to get a job serving fish and chips at the local seaside town’s Pavillion. Incidentally, the town in question was recently voted chavviest in the South West. That should give you an idea of who I was serving, in holiday season – the worst kind of council estate brummies, hanging round the beach drinking Stella and smacking their kids. Pop to the Pavillion for an overpriced lunch and admittedly excellent whippy ice-cream, and head inside to play the fruit machines.

The thing about the Pavillion was that there was the part where I worked, serving fish and chips, ice creams and sweets, and delivering pizzas in the evening, and in the main building on the Pier there was the amusement arcade, where all the kiddies and old ladies would sit there smoking and shovelling pennies into the penny falls machines. As an aside, do any of you actually think these things are legit? First off, what the hell are these people going to do if by some magical coincidence they turn a reasonable profit? Change up bags of 2ps? Yeah, you’ll do that before feeding them back in. And secondly, think about the principles of the thing. It’s self-sustaining! What goes in, comes back out. So you might think, where’s the profit for the owner? Well, it’s in the massive bucket underneath the payout tray, where, I would say, about 10% of the coins go. They would empty about 15KG of 2ps out of those every couple of days over the summer.

I’m getting distracted. The other part of the main building was the usual screened from view casino, with all the £2 a play casino machines and computerised fruit machines. The difference here is not only would you get the drunk brummie Dads shovelling their dole money in, you would get the ‘regulars’. I developed something of a friendship with quite a few of these people, as I was working 6 days a week, 6-12 hours a day, and they would get given meal vouchers by staff to come and buy what they wanted from me.

I distinctly remember one couple in particular – they were both edging on 70, at a guess, both came from separate farming marriages, and their respective spouses had died. So they had gotten hitched, sold both their farms, and moved to a flat on the seaside with several million sitting in the bank. Now these were both lovely people, but they were bored, and they clearly didn’t know what to do with themselves. They would turn up every single night, mid to late evening, go into the casino, and I’d see them once or twice a night when they’d get fish and chips or a hotdog. Only after working there for a few months and talking with some of the staff in the casino, did I find out their situation and that when they visited, they would generally put about £1000 a night in the machines between them. Now when you’re putting that amount in you’re obviously going to win a few jackpots, and the machines in here weren’t rigged at all – in fact they were set at about 95%, and a few at 102-103% to attract people in. But the fact is they were just spending vast amounts of money, every single day, and I don’t see how there’s any pleasure in the win. It’s agiven, and you end up just playing the odds. All you end up doing is chasing the thrill of the win but it’s always tepid because it’s not really a win. And I know that if I ended up gambling as much as I would like to, I’d end up throwing that sort of money away, but I don’t think I’ll be lucky enough to be able to afford it, like they could.

I have many more stories to tell of the Pavillion which can wait for another day, such as the 16-year old employee who got knocked up by the manager (despite him having his own girlfriend and kids) and ending up marrying the 50-year old pizza delivery driver, the old Manc woman who was completely trashed and tried to snog me when I took her hotdog to her, the teenager who jumped off the end of the pier when the tide was a little too low and ended up breaking both his legs, the batshit crazy lady I would deliver pizza to who, no word of a lie, would generally answer the door naked, with a python round her neck. A ridiculous cliché, but an excellent tip for me!
( Rookie You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel, Fri 8 May 2009, 10:51, 1 reply)

Eurovision
Some friends of mine have (or maybe had) a regular Eurovision night party where they would watch the show and have a sweepstake on the winner. I went along one year and was doing pretty well with Malta. I did even better with the nice red-headed lady with whom I sat under the piano and discussed Portishead.

Now she is Mrs Flatfrog and we have two kids. Who says gambling never pays?
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Fri 8 May 2009, 9:53, 2 replies)

A tax for people who are bad at maths
Disclaimer: this post contains maths. The concepts are simple, and the sums are already done for you.

Like many, many people nationwide, I played the National Lottery every week for its first year. I held out hope that my numbers would come up and solve all my worries. Hoped that is until our maths teacher, Mr Tucker, gave us a lesson in probability.

The odds of correctly guessing one number to be drawn from the 49 lottery balls is 1:49, or 1 in 49. That would leave 48 balls, so a subsequent correct guess would be a 1:48 chance, and so on, for all six balls:

49 X 48 X 47 X 46 X 45 X 44 = 10,068,347,520

or a little over ten billion to one.

Of course, you don't need to pick the numbers in the same order they are drawn. For any six numbers, there are 720 ways they can be drawn, using much the same calculation as above

6 X 5 X 4 X 3 X 2 X 1 = 720

If we take the larger odds and divide them by the small one, we're left with

10,068,347,520 / 720 = 13,983,816

or just under fourteen million to one. These are the odds of you correctly guessing six out of 49 numbers drawn in the lottery and are, I believe, still printed on the back of lottery tickets.

Does that sound like incredibly long odds? Anyone taking the occasional punt on a 100 to 1 shot in the Grand National knows that, while it wins occasionally to the frustration of the bookies, most of the time their money is wasted. Would you put a quid on a horse with odds of fourteen million to one?

Mr Tucker gave us another interesting insight into how unlikely a win on the lottery is.

It's said that there's a one in one thousand chance that a healthy, middle-aged man will die of any cause in the next year. If we expand on that, the chance of him dying in the next week is 1:52,000; the next day, 1:365,000. The chance of him dying in the next hour is 1:8,760,000.

So, we could say that a man has a better chance of dying in the next three quarters of an hour than he does of winning the lottery.

And that's why I maintain my belief that the lottery is a tax for people who are bad at maths.
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Fri 8 May 2009, 9:32, 36 replies)

"Betcha ten bucks thatcha can't do this!",
I said, and slowly, I leant over backwards, resting my fingertips on the ground, before settling my weight onto my palms.
I was in short, literally bending over backwards for someone.

they didn't pay up the slimy git.
(Poppet some assembly required., Fri 8 May 2009, 9:25, 5 replies)

high roller
when i was 10 i bet all of my pocket money (£3.50) on the winning horse at the grand national and won about £18. true story.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 8 May 2009, 9:19, Reply)

Bradford
I gambled with my house, when I lost my car,
I gambled with my car, trying to win back my wife,
I lost my family on a sure fire thing,
Then I lost against the odds when I gambled with my life.
Now I'm on a list....
(Jugular, Fri 8 May 2009, 9:14, 1 reply)

I bet you cant kill an elephant
Apologies for a Daily Mail link but..



www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1177990/U-S-woman-poses-magnificent-elephant-downed-bow-arrow-left-die-overnight.html

That is one bet that is surely going to backfire
(insomniac-surfer oh go on then, just this once, Fri 8 May 2009, 1:05, 2 replies)

stupidest bet i've ever taken
i've always had a weight problem and, as a teenager, my doctor gave me a months' supply of slimming pills. i was young, therefore had no reason to distrust my doctor. i thought they'd work.

they didn't.

they made me feel like i had a bowling ball in my stomach for 2 hours. when this feeling wore off, i was ravenous and ate even more.
after 2 weeks of this, i had gained 3 pounds and was very pissed off.
i decided to get drunk with a friend of mine. after rather a lot of vodka, my friend said "i dare you to take the rest of those pills and see what happens"*
like a complete and utter fuckwit, i did.
it wasn't until i went to bed that night that i realised what i'd done. lying there, i thought "shit, i might have just killed myself!"
unfortunately, i was far too drunk to do anything about it.
fortunately, i didn't die.
what did happen was that i woke up the next morning, completely off my tits. my jaw was going like a dremel and my eyes were practically revolving. i called my friend, who came right over.
"shit!" she said, "you're speeding your box off! you'd better stay at mine for the night. if your mum sees you, she'll fucking scalp you!"

and so, off i went to my friend's flat. for 3 days, i couldn't eat, sleep or sit still. her flat has never been so clean.
when i finally started to feel tired, i went home. mum was used to me taking off to my mate's place, so she didn't question my disappearance.
i went upstairs, collapsed into my bed and slept for 16 hours.
when i woke up, i felt like hammered shit.
the one good thing about this was that i vowed never to do anything so stupid again.

i've done loads more stupid shit over the years, but nothing quite as bad as that. i learned my lesson.

*if she'd thought for one second i'd actually do it, she'd never have suggested it.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 8 May 2009, 0:49, 2 replies)

Twenty quid says
he hasn't got me pregnant.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 8 May 2009, 0:46, 2 replies)

Ice-Ice-Baby
Bit of a tangent this one, but:

Summer of 1997: I, your debonair narrator is 15 years old, and has managed to get a date with a young lady (lets call her Kate), but is scrabbling for ideas on where to go for aforementioned date. Living in a small village gave the options of going to the park and twisting the swings up, smoking cigarettes, and not much else. Hence a dilemma. I was all for us hanging out in the park (with delirious visions of access to ladybits) but Kate suggested that as some of our other friends were going ice-skating in Coventry we could join them and make a date of it. Fair enough thinks I, I can wow her with my Torville and Deane shtick and then impress her in McDonalds afterwards.

Unfortunately, however, I cannot ice-skate. Luckily, neither can Kate.

We take the bus to Cov, get to the ice-rink, pay, and go and change our shoes for skates. Just after we had come in two rather large Geordies, covered in tattoos, and steaming drunk, had entered with their girlfriends. What two Geordies were doing in a Coventry ice-rink, I have no idea.

The girlfriends got onto the ice at the same time as we did. The Geordies repair to the bar to further refresh themselves in the finest North-East manner.

The ice skating started well, I only fell over a few times, and I caught Kate shyly smiling at me a few times as she also took the odd tumble. We were both going around fairly near to the barrier as we needed some support. This went on for a while.

Enter the Geordies.

Geordie 1 turns to Geordie 2 and, at the top of his voice, suggest that Geordie 2 isn't man enough on skates to impress his woman. Geordie 2 takes issue with this and debates the commitment of Geordie 1 to heterosexuality. Well, says Geordie 1, I bet you can't vault over the barrier and land on your skates to impress your girlfriend! You bet I can, ripostes Geordie 2, I'll show you!

Geordie 2 then leaps over the barrier, his immense beer gut undulating with the effort, his shiny shaven head dripping with perspiration and flushed with alcohol. Miraculously he doesn't catch his legs on the barrier and end up face-planting into the ice.

More miraculously he actually manages to land upright.

Unluckily for him his skates shot in different directions, whilst the beer-sodden mass of the man continued downwards.

His shins broke in almost exactly the same place, splaying outwards about halfway down with a horrible wet cracking sound. He lay on the ice, just in front of me and Kate, stunned, blood leaking out of the holes in his legs, whilst Geordie 1 roundly abused him for not being a man and taking the piss out of him for having broken his legs.

After Kate finished puking in the toilets the remainder of the date actually went quite well.

It put me off ice-skating for life though.
(Zapiola zip-zap-zop, Fri 8 May 2009, 0:26, Reply)

I had a Bet once
My little swamp duck Vera almost Lynched me when she found out.

Best,

Jack
(Capo, Thu 7 May 2009, 23:39, 1 reply)

One of my best mates is a croupier
His advice to me? Never ever gamble.

So I don't.
( calgacus Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae, Thu 7 May 2009, 23:04, 4 replies)

only gambled properly twice,
first time in Melbourne, started with $10, ended with $55 (did get it up to $80 though) second time in Southampton, started with a £5 promo voucher and ended with £15. not much i know, but hey i'm not complaining!
once while blind drunk bet my housemate an entire quid i could guess how many stairs there are in our house - i won that one too :D though the tight git never paid up :(
(MrPokey, Thu 7 May 2009, 22:59, 1 reply)

Got into online gambling in a big way
...bought a mattress on ebay.
(Countryslicker, Thu 7 May 2009, 22:43, Reply)

Horse Druggery
In 2000 I was living in Rio de Janeiro, whilst working at a local school for the princely sum of 500 reals per month (this roughly equated to £120). Given I was living with my Old Man at the time I pretty much could spend the 500 on what I wanted. Usually alcohol.

One weekend a friend of mine suggested that we go to the Hippodromo, where the cream of Rio society go to watch horses flogged around a course as fast as possible in temperatures of up to 45C. It made a change from the usual weekly excursions of getting drunk in a dodgy bar on Copacabana or going to a football match.

Along I toddle, 50 reals in my sweaty hand, thinking that I won't bet it all as I don't really gamble. We sat in the stands at first, drinking appalling Anartica beer and watching a few races (and the several rather attractive young ladies who were nearby). Then a rather spivvy looking gentlemen, having realised we were foreigners, took us under his wing and explained that although he was a teacher in a local school his main passion was betting on the horses. He explained the intricacies of horse betting, led us to the paddock where we glanced over the horses, their flanks streaming with pungent sweat, the jockeys nearby furtively smoking, the impressively chested woman talking to a race official. He explained all about the form of various horses, the differences in the races, the method of betting, where to bet etc. etc.

He suggested we bet on the next race. He was betting on a horse called Iran-Iraq, as it'd had good form in previous races. Sod it, I thought, and put 10 reals down on Iran-Iraq too.

We returned to the stands, sipping beer, and waiting for the race to start. The horses bolted out of the starting area like streaks of brown fire... the jockeys almost upright in the saddles, whips raised, goading them to further exertions of speed.

Half way round, Iran-Iraq was in the lead... I was pleased - I stood to win 40 reals on top of the 10 I'd put down if it won. Three quarters of the way round, Iran-Iraq started to slow, then weave from side to side. The other horses passed it in a flash.

Almost opposite us, with the finish line no more than 30 yards ahead, the now meandering, and clearly drugged up Iran-Iraq stumbled to a halt and fell, badly twisting its knee. Within seconds a race official was there, summoning a vet who, after a few minutes, summoned another guy who put a bullet through its head with a rifle.

As we sat there watching a forklift truck take the now deceased Iran-Iraq off the track, our new Brazilian friend turned to us and said:

"That's the problem with this place. They drug all the successful horses."

I did win 80 reals a few weeks later though.
(Zapiola zip-zap-zop, Thu 7 May 2009, 22:17, Reply)

Viva las Vegas
I live a 4-4 1/2 hour drive from Vegas, so usually go up there 2-3 times a year.
2 years ago, when husbandthesecond and I were still together, we made a trip for a couple of nights. Had a good time, bought new fishing gear at Bass Pro Shops (bonus!), spent some time eating good food and doing a little gambling.
We went to see the show Spamalot (which if you've never seen is fucking hilarious) and he wasn't feeling good so went straight up to bed afterwards.
I put $20 into a nickel slot machine, and on my second hit I won $250. Sweet!

The next day, we were wandering around and we saw a Pearl Factory booth. You basically spend $10, open an oyster and you get a pearl out of it. Usually, the pearls that come out of those things are the standard white ones, but the one he opened had a silver pearl......a very high quality silver pearl. This particular type usually values over the $1,000 mark. So, being a good husband, he had it set in a gorgeous diamond ring which cost him close to $1,000.
I've since had that ring valued, and it's worth $3,000!

The last day there we were meeting one of my fishing buddies for breakfast, so we were just hanging out playing slots in the Luxor while waiting for my friend to show up. I threw $20 into a dollar slot (remember, I'd won $250 previously) and hit the $1,000 jackpot! :D

That was an ace trip!
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Thu 7 May 2009, 22:16, Reply)

Last day of Term
It was the last day of Term in 5th year (that is, I was 17) and like all good geeks my and my friends were still there. Not only that but we got to play poker.
We had no chips and we weren't allowed to use cash (there was a teacher in the room) so we used Sweets instead.
After two hours of Poker, one guy had two packets of Fruit Pastels, a packet of Smarties and a packet of Malteasers.

He was diabetic.
(Canazza is mostly listening to Yes, Thu 7 May 2009, 22:02, Reply)