The most amazing bets in the world

You can’t imagine what bettors can do in the heat of passion!

A gulp for a million

This bet has gone down in history as one of the oldest. The Egyptian queen Cleopatra and her Roman lover Mark Antony argued. The famous beauty offered a wager that during one feast she would drink a sum of wine greater than what Antony had spent on a recent sumptuous feast. Since millions of sesterces were involved, he did not believe this was possible and agreed.
Clearly Cleopatra couldn’t help but cheat. At the feast she dissolved a large black pearl in wine vinegar and drank it. This decoration cost fabulous money, so that formally the rules were observed, and the famous general admitted defeat.

By the way, modern scientists have managed to prove that such a chemical experience is quite possible. It is true that the process of dissolving takes one day, but the Egyptian woman could soak her pearl and come to the feast with the softened gem. Or the feast lasted so long that there was enough time.

Fashionable dispute

The British aristocrat Lord Spencer, who lived two hundred years ago, had a reputation in London circles as the undisputed trendsetter. His self-confidence in the matter was so great that he once even bet that he would somehow ruin his tails, let’s say by trimming the fringes, and wearing it to a ball. In doing so, the attendees would think it was quite decent attire.
It should be noted that the lord not only managed to emerge victorious from the dispute, but also managed to revolutionise fashion. Shortened jackets were used by both males and females. This version of the jacket is still called “spencer” today. They are an alternative to dinner jackets.

A ten-second film

The famous Italian screenwriter Tonino Guerra, who collaborated with Fellini and Tarkovsky, once made a bet that he could write a script for a full film which would run for no longer than ten seconds.

One day was enough to win the bet. The script was, “A certain lady sits in front of a television set that shows a rocket getting ready to launch. The countdown time is running out: 4… 3… 2… At this time, the woman’s face displays a whole gamut of emotions. At the last second she grabs the phone receiver, spins the dial and, along with the ship taking off, utters: “That’s it, he’s gone.”

Some more amazing bets

• Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has always been interested in black holes. And he argued it is about them, for example, whether or not there is a black hole in a particular place in space, whether it is able to absorb information without trace and so on. What is surprising is that Hawking has consistently lost such debates.
• One day, the star of world basketball Shaquille O’Neal made a bet that without any training and connections will get into the White House for an audience with Barack Obama. The American president’s bodyguards were delighted with his star visitor, but refused to let him in.
• It was in 1960. A certain David Threlfall from Great Britain once decided to place a bet in a bookmaker’s office. He was attracted by an event with odds of 1000 (!) that at least one man will fly to the Moon in the next decade. He placed a big bet and the next nine years passed in agonizing suspense. And hardly anyone was more excited than Trelfolk when the astronauts led by Neil Armstrong made their famous flight in Apollo 11.