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The Marriage Bet

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I’m known as someone people rarely get upset with, but this is the story of the one time someone was more upset with me than about any other time I can remember.

I used to be known as a guy who would make a line on anything. I would let anyone bet me as long as they were willing to lay 11 to 10 odds. A guy named Andy played poker with me and one night, he managed to pick up a pretty girl at a bar. Like a lot of gamblers, he was a good enough hustler that he convinced this girl to marry him after being together for only a month. We all knew Andy would cheat on her as soon as they were married, so people asked me to make a line on how long their marriage would last. Even though she’d fallen for Andy’s hustle, this girl was pretty sharp and I was sure she would figure him out quickly. I didn’t think the marriage would last six months.

It’s hard to bet a marriage will end that soon so I made the line at one year. Several people threw me $1,100 across the poker table and one guy threw me $5,500. All the bets were that the marriage would last more than a year.

About a week after she married Andy, I ran into the girl and she confronted me.

“I heard you bet our marriage wouldn’t last a year. You’re a horrible person! You must be a real asshole to make such a mean-spirited bet!” she screamed.

I apologized and told her it wasn’t my intention. Initially, the bet grew out of a joke and I had to honor it because people know my word is good. I wished her a long and happy marriage, even though I didn’t believe it was possible.

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A year later, the players who bet reminded me I had to pay up. Someone who knew Andy confirmed to me he was still married. About a week after that, I was walking to my car in the parking lot of the Cameo Club where I played poker, when I heard a woman scream, “You asshole!” I looked up and saw Andy’s wife. She told me that Andy was a jerk right from the start and she caught him cheating on her only a month after they got married. She said she would have divorced him, but she was too embarrassed to let people know she was on the losing side of such a public bet. She told me that because I booked the bet, she endured the worst year of her life living with Andy and had now finally filed for divorce.

Her revelation led me to do something a year later. A Vegas player came into our card club and I knew he was a really bad guy. The first day he was there, he was chatting up one of the waitresses and I overheard her telling a friend he had asked her out. I got the chance to talk to her before her shift was over and told her she was about to make a big mistake if she went out with this guy.

Once she got to know him, she realized what I already knew. From then on, every time she saw the both of us playing, she thanked me for saving her. I thanked her in return—she saved me from making another bad line!

The post The Marriage Bet appeared first on Barry Greenstein.


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