Give him $6 and say you are required by federal tax code to withold the other $4.
Is he any good at filling out brackets? I have no idea.
Does winning against 10+ people three years in a row prove anything? Maybe. Statistically you’ll do that about once in every 1000 times.
But to really make the comment that “I contend that being good at picking a 64-team bracket is like being good at rolling dice.” shows such a massive ignorance of the theories behind intelligent gambling that I’m not at all shocked you lost. In fact, if you chose all your teams by coinflip, I guarantee you’d lose 99.999% of the time against anyone familiar with the teams.
All that said, I couldn’t care less how you pay him the money. Roll a $10 bill up and shove it into your urethra and make your friend suck it out.
Team of Scientists
The volume of $10.00 in pennies (at 50% “packing efficiency”) is just slightly over a quart or about 1.071 quarts. This is also just slighly larger than a liter. So, you might have to think about what kind of jar you will need. A half gallon jar would easily do the job but if you could find something in between a quart and a half gallon, that would be ideal don’t you think? Hey, these things have to be done properly.
(And a nod to Annie-Xmas and her “Evil Geniushood” for such a terrific idea).
What? No ‘White Castle’ gift certificates…? 
Is Annie really the only one here who has heard of the water glass trick? It’s an old one. Anyone who has waitressed or worked as a server finds that one, usually done by teenagers who think they are oh so hilarious. What usually happens is it all just gets swept into the plastic bin by the busperson (no waitress is going to go after the pennies.)
The trick itself works though - but you could just put the $10 bill in there too.
This has had me giggling for the past hour.
Note to self: never lose a bet to Annie Xmas.
Sure, I’ve heard of it to impress your friends and confound your enemies, or just to show off to your cute cousin at the family reunion. But I’ve not heard of the Dark Side of water glass flipping before.
Be a good sport and write him a check for the full $10…just paint it on a barn door!
Ah. I have only ever seen it used for evil. What that says about the people I associate with, I can only guess.
Nobody in the pool follows sports gambling any more than the rest, nor do they follow college basketball any closer. SOP is to keep an eye on the basketball season and, when the time comes, do some research (i.e. check out history and news on participating teams) and make your picks. It’s not like he’s the ringer in a group of dinguses, as robardin put it. Intelligent sports gambling isn’t even relevant to the situation. All we have is a group of casual sports fans who like to throw a few bucks into a pool every year. I don’t mean to demean those who are serious sports gamblers.
Is it possible that he’s hustled us for three years, using inside information and an extensive knowledge of the game to an advantage in choosing which teams are more likely to advance? I suppose, but even if that was the case, I don’t know if it would shift the odds enough in his favor to say he didn’t get very lucky to win three years in a row. More likely, I think, is that he got very lucky while following essentially the same strategy as the rest of us: Pick a few upsets, maybe a cinderella, put mostly 1-seeds in the Final Four along with a 2- and/or 3- seed. Examining his bracket, this seems to be the case. More improbable things have happened.
This was meant to be a fun thread on how to play a prank on a friend (posted on April 1, no less), not a condemnation on sports gambling as silly and futile.
I should add that you’re right, Ender, that to say that it is impossible for anyone to be good at picking a bracket is wrong. All I’m saying is that it’s not likely that my roommate is good at it.
Even harder will be trying to flip a jar containing somewhere between 5.5 and 6.8 pounds of pennies and even more water without spilling most of it.
One simple solution: I could split the pennies into groups of 100 and put 10 separate upside-down jars on his desk. It’d still be a pain in the ass for him, and much easier on me.
You are cruel.
I like that in a person.
Make it some sort of yellow colored Jello and tell him you substituted urine for water when you made it.
Well fair 'nuff then.
Talk him into double or nothing. Do this every year until you win.
Of course you might have to buy him a new car in the far future.
How about 2 $5 whores, or alternatively, 10 $1 whores?
Yeah guys, It’s a freaking 10 dollar bet. If his friend is being a sore winner there’s nothing wrong with being a bit…creative…in the payment. But have 10 dollars ready in case he doesn’t get the joke.
I’d recommend finding out how to get a huge check printed out and give it to him all Ed MacMahon style to highlight his bracket picking “gift”
I actually used this one more than 25 years ago. The idea came from that marvelous underground comic of the 1960s, “The Adventures of Harold Hedd.”
I was betting my sister-in-law at a family function, and was obvious by halftime that her Minnesota Vikings were going to whip my team, whoever that was. So I slipped out at halftime, converted my $5 bet into pennies, and put them in a small jar of honey.
We have been passing that jar back and forth at odd intervals as gag gifts ever since. They honey is like a rock, the pennies are still visible, and it how has a lovely ribbon that’s been attached for two decades.
Great conversation piece and lots of fun.
Sure, it’s not as evil as Annie-Xmas, but it has its place.
Three friends of mine once made a hasty and regrettable bet; at the time, they considered themselves eternal bachelors, so the first of them to get married would have to pay the other two some reasonably substantial sum of money (I think it was £500 each) . One of them eventually became engaged and married - on his wedding day, he presented to each of the other two cheques for the required amount, but embedded right inside hefty blocks of clear plastic, mounted and engraved as trophies. They could have presented the cheques, but I think the bank said they would have to destroy them (or at least destroy their aesthetic attributes) in order to process them.