Forfeit Bets

Gambling and betting are not synonyms. They’re often used interchangeably (even by me when I’m trying not to be repetitious), but they have slightly different meanings. At least in a regulatory sense.

Back when I was concocting promotions for PokerStars, I would usually have to run my ideas past our legal counsel. Particularly if the proposals were for acquisition campaigns that would go on TV across many markets.

In the heyest of days, that legal counsel was the late great Steve Kraut; a wonderful, mischievous American, whose drawling accent remains every former colleague’s favourite person to impersonate. You had to be very careful drinking canned drinks around Steve, because you could never be sure where his used chewing tobacco was ending up. That is a mouthful you will never forget.

“Booooooooooob”, he would say (though sounding like “barb” than how you just read it), “in order for your promotion to be considered aahhhhhhh… gambling, there needs to be aahhhhhh… ‘consideration’. If people aren’t staking their aahhhh… own money, then it aaahhhh… isn’t gambling”.

It’s a good job Steve was very efficient about forming his legal opinions, because it offset how long it took for him to actually say them. He was a great guy to have down the pub, to go on holiday with, and to have next to you in the gaming trenches.

The point at the end of this bittersweet memory lane, is that you don’t have to gamble to make a bet. In fact, for a lot of people, it’s much more fun if you don’t.

The gambling high comes from dopamine, and dopamine doesn’t care if you’ve got money on the line. It’s responding to anticipation and jeopardy. That means you just have to wager something you care about to get the buzz. That’s the beauty of a Forfeit Bet.

There’s a brilliant TV show that illustrates this well – Impractical Jokers. Four guys pranking around, trying to avoid being the subject of the end-of-show embarrassment prank. It’s great toe-curling fun.

The only tricky bit of coming up with a good Forfeit Bet is coming up with suitable stakes. For this to work it really has to be done before the event in question. Never give someone the power of a forfeit blank cheque!

For a lot of football fans, losing a bet and having to wear a rival’s shirt is more painful than any financial loss. I’m not that invested in any team, so it seems like light punishment to me.

Rubbish tattoos are a favourite stake in this kind of thing, but as an advocate of safer gambling I think that’s a stake too high. A good forfeit should be uncomfortable and embarrassing, but never permanently scarring.

Here are a couple of personal examples where I think the penance is in the sweetspot between putting on a disliked T-shirt and having a stranger inject you with poisonous heavy metals.

I went to see a Premier League game at Fulham with two friends. We were each assigned an outcome (home win, away win, draw), and whoever’s result came in had to roll up a trouser leg until such time as a stranger passed comment on it.

After ninety otherwise uninteresting minutes, I was the unlucky shin-bearer. It started to snow just as we left the ground, and because it was London, nobody dared say a thing about my stylish new Masonic look. I was finally shown mercy in a Clapham bar around midnight.

The second example was from a simple four-man game of Rock, Paper Scissors during one of my ski seasons. Whichever player finished bottom in a mini tournament would have to tape a bottle of wine to each hand, and stay that way until both were finished.

It remains the drunkest I’ve ever been. Although it wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t become over-confident at the halfway point and ordered shots. I took myself to bed soon after completing the challenge and fully deserved my hubris hangover.

I don’t regret either instance, and nor have I forgotten them. That’s what makes these bets so much more enjoyable than a standard punt.

No matter the result, everyone involved gets something out of it. And the bookies get nothing.