There are bets that go south and some – like the famous Archie Karas, who burned through $40 million in the space of three short Las Vegas weeks in 1995 - that make it all the way to the South Pole. But for our money the worst bet ever was one that won.
This wasn’t a wager about the outcome of a sports event or even a matter of a high roller like Archie K in a casino, this was something altogether worse.
Brian Zembic is a professional gambler and part-time magician. But since 1996 he has had more than just a few tricks hidden up his sleeve.
Whatever it was about the mid-1990s, Zembic had it in spades. He was bet $100,000 by a ‘friend’ that he would not dare have a boob job. What’s more, they obviously discussed this in some detail, he insisted that to claim the cash Zembic had to keep his new cans for more than a year.
Nineteen years on and Zembic is still proudly sticking out his surgically enhanced chest as a proud winner. In fact, as part of the package he pulls in an additional $10,000 for every year he keeps it up.
Avoiding an outcome like Mr Zembic’s is fairly straightforward. Our advice would be ‘don’t make bets when there’s tequila in the room’.
More seriously, there are increasingly clever ways to tilt the odds in your favour, especially when it comes to sports bets. For example, the betfair math betting app is capable of calculating all the data that feeds into the assessment of a football match.
It means that however crazy your own judgement might be – and there are definitely some people who need this more than others – you ought not to be too far away from coming out on the right side of the deal. There are also apps that will help you through the complexity of poker and other casino games, but that’s another story.
The bottom line is there is a winning space – somewhere between Archie Karas and Brian Zembic – that is easier to reach than ever before. And the very good news is that it doesn’t have to involve either seeing your money head south or having to fork out for new underwear.
Worst ever bet?
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