# Resolved: Betting. Betting is not permitted for any purpose, including but not limited to fun, charity, or for the sake of argument **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [September 17, 2023, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-betting-betting-is-not-permitted-for-any-purpose-including-but-not-limited-to-fun-charity-or-for-the-sake-of-argument/990230 "2023-09-17T03:59:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 32
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-betting-betting-is-not-permitted-for-any-purpose-including-but-not-limited-to-fun-charity-or-for-the-sake-of-argument/990230/32 "2023-09-17T21:00:20Z")
I am advocating betting. Most of what we do here is not subject to proof, mathematical or otherwise. It involves the weighing of evidence. Even in GQ. Friendly bets can clarify matters, via the setting of odds. They also provide a very limited degree of public accountability (especially in a pseudo-anonymous environment), something that a PM won’t do. This isn’t about making money, and it isn’t about flashing dollar bills. There are plenty of ways to do that without betting. From my June 2020 post: > It’s easy to make a prediction, to assert that something will happen. But a bet - or really the setting of odds - focuses the mind and can clarify the underlying issues. I once challenged Bricker by writing, “Gee guy, you seem pretty confident. Will you give me 10:1 odds?” He replied something like, “I’m not 10:1 confident. I’m even money confident”. Seen in that light, our differences were less than they might have first appeared. (By the way, that’s how you handle folks who use betting as a bullying tool. Ask them for 200:1 odds if they are so confident.) [Chronos and Betting - #102 by Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chronos-and-betting/912992/102) I don’t object to rules about hounding people on bets. Or maybe I do (because it’s so easy to handle- see the quote) , but let’s take things one step at a time. So contra **LSLGuy** , betting doesn’t have to be an insult, anymore than any request for accountability (eg a picture ID at the DMV or local tavern) is an insult. That said, a perfectly reasonable response would be, “I have no desire to set up an account over at [longbets.org](http://longbets.org), and this board has had bad experiences enforcing bets. So they won’t do it. Tough luck dude: you’re going to have to earn your quatloos elsewhere.” Let me drill down a little, by quoting the GD/Pol specific rule (h/t hendo): > No betting. Gambling between posters in GD and Politics and Elections over debate outcomes or real world events is forbidden. In the past we’ve had posters use this as a rhetorical device to abuse other posters and accuse them of lacking the courage of their convictions. It’s a jerk move we have decided to no longer allow. Me: it’s not necessarily a jerk move. All my conversations about betting on this board, including the one with Bricker, were civil. I’ve never engaged in a bet here, but I believe discussions of them have been illuminating. > [@Hellestal](#): > > Even the bet of a single dollar forces adherence to a specific proposition, and a specific time-frame, with a specific possibility of being wrong. This is why it’s so useful. Absent a religious reluctance, people who avoid even minuscule bets do so because they don’t actually believe what they’re writing. > > As it is said, bets are “taxes on bullshit”. I think 2012 was the last bet I made here, but it’s still a bad move if they’re gone. Economists even have a label for this concept. It’s called _revealed preference._ Talk is cheap: [for lols, here’s one working paper on the subject](https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/rjmorgan/Krishna%20and%20Morgan%20on%20Cheap%20Talk.pdf) This is not about a love of gambling. It’s about a useful tool for clarifying one’s position. If the board objects to haranguing, then it should have a rule against haranguing. That would leave scope for this useful ignorance-fighting tool. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-betting-betting-is-not-permitted-for-any-purpose-including-but-not-limited-to-fun-charity-or-for-the-sake-of-argument/990230)._