last week a buddy of mine was posting about rising gas prices on facebook. at the time of the post gas prices were 3.45 at the kroger between our houses. My wife replied with a prediction that "gas will be 2.99 by memorial day" (quoted for importance...). my buddy, seeing a chance to win some easy money from her asked if she cared to bet on that. He picked 3.79 by memorial day, she had the 2.99 for a tank of gas, whoever was closest wins. amount wagered was a tank of gas. really no other details to the bet.

When I heard of the bet I kind of mocked her for making a bad bet for several reasons:

A: the starting midpoint was closer to his 3.79 so he has a headstart
B: Memorial Day is the peak driving day and gas prices tend to rise in the summer
C: in atlanta the gas has a different formula in the summer which makes it more expensive
D: he has a 22 gallon tank versus our 18 gallon tank
E: the world's on fire and with the Libyan thing all hell could break lose
F: there's no cap on how high they can rise. It could rise to $6.00 per gallon easier than it can go down to something like $2.50 adding to the -ev.

I called my buddy bitching at him about making such a 1 sided bet with my wife, asking how much for a buyout. He ended up cancelling it. I owe him lunch.

Now today my wife shows me on atlantagasprices.com that there are several stations near us where gas is below 3.35 and that she would have won the bet since the post said "by Memorial Day", not "on Memorial Day" or Memorial Day Weekend etc...

question: Could she have claimed victory in the bet right now if the bet was still in place?

"Gas will be $2.99 by Memorial Day" assumes that $2.99 will be a steady price around that time. This is clearly what she meant. If she had said "gas will hit $2.99 before Memorial Day", that would leave room for it to be just a one day fluke at some point.

If she tries to convince you otherwise, you can be certain that she fakes orgasms.

 

Originally Posted by timthegem

If she tries to convince you otherwise, you can be certain that she fakes orgasms.

little does she know I do too...

Yes, she would have won and I don't see how it's close.

"I'll pay you back by Memorial Day."
"I'll be there by 10PM."
"You need to figure that out by next week."

As long as you get these things done w/in the allotted time frame, you're good--there is no penalty for being early.

EDIT: If I made this bet, I would 100% have made this crystal clear before booking it. I am a nit about shit like this b/c it tilts me when people try to get out of a bet on some bullshit technicality.

Elusively, i see what youre saying but when you make a deal you should probably think about how the average person translates what you say as opposed to the exact wording (unless you want to get into fights over stupid bets and wording issues). 75+% will read the op bet as his friend does while 100% will think the opposite about the examples you provided.

angle shooting but yes she technically would win. But very shady. Definitely need to specify before booking a bet like this

Theres a big difference between flaking out on a bet by twisting the terms of the rules and not paying because the bet obviously wasn't clear to all parties.

in my wife's defense, she never really does prop bets like this so it's kind of new to her. My buddy does bets like this all the time like most of us on p5s do. She tells me she sincerely meant "BY", meaning sometime between time of bet and memorial day.

somehow these two make a poorly worded bet and I end up losing because I owe my buddy lunch, and if my wife does win without question, I'll owe her dinner and have to listen to her tell me I f'd up.

@Rubinh-- as for what D has to do with it (18 gallon tank versus 22 gallon tank), we would have to fill a much larger tank making it +ev for my buddy.

my bad. both. will fix OP.

yea, she wouldnt have won yet. u would have to wait til memorial day to see if gas hit either the $2.99 or $3.79 number, if it had hit neither by memorial day then i guess it would be who ever got closer to their #. so if it had gotten as low as 3.19 and as high as 3.60, then ur friend wins.

the terms of the bet are really poorly laid out as well.

ur buddy is also dumb for picking a #, he should have just said gas will not hit $2.99 by memorial day, then u would have a pretty clearly defined bet. or he should have picked $3.00.

another way the bet could go if they wanted to pick #'s was to pick a gas price and then bet on if it rises by .50 (or whatever) first or drops by that amount.

I think the bigger question here is why are you so fixated on gas prices when it's obvious that your buddy and wife are fucking?

 

Originally Posted by cizastro

I think the bigger question here is why are you so fixated on gas prices when it's obvious that your buddy and wife are fucking?

when they come back from their respective business trips in Cabo I'm going to ask them about this. it can't be true.

 

Originally Posted by SirLiesAlot

Your wife was hustling and you ruined it. Making sure to specify, technicalities, angle shooting? Come on now, this is a low stakes bet between friends. Of course you try and win on a sneaky technicality! That's what friends are for. She tried to tin cup him with a 7 iron down the highway and you had no faith in her. Well played by your wife.

winner.