What's the weirdest bet you've made/seen in a pool hall?

Went to a pool hall in Maryland and there is a canal right behind the place...when you go out to the smoking area you're over looking the canal...Anyways, I take a smoke break and when I get out there there's these two older guys intently watching the canal and betting on something catching a fish or not...so I walked over to look and there was a blue heron standing on the bank...It would dunk its head under water and it was about 50/50 as to if it had a fish in its mouth when it came up...They were betting it up too...$50 a dunk!!!! LOL thats the strangest bet I've ever seen at a pool hall...

I've shared this story before.

I'd rather not name names, but those who regularly frequented the Golden Q in Elmhurst, NY in the early 1980's will already know this story.

A fairly well-off Chinese fellow who owned a nice little restaurant in Chinatown gambled for about thirteen hours against one of the regular action players there in what I seem to recall was 1982. It started out for 1,000 a set, but the stakes got higher and higher, and before long the game was race to seven 9-ball for 10,000 a set. By sunrise, the Chinese fellow was stuck over 60,000 and was nearly out of money. He wasn't giving up yet, however, and asked for a double or nothing game. Not too surprisingly, his opponent protested that he had nothing left to bet with. The Chinese fellow said "How about if I put up my restaurant in Chinatown?" Sure enough, the wager was accepted, and sure enough the fellow lost his restaurant! It was quite painful to watch. By the end of the night, the fellow had lost 60,000 and a restaurant worth the same.

In short, the weirdest stake I've ever seen played for is "one Chinese restaurant."

The weirdest bets I've seen:

1. Abe Rosen, a grand old man of pool, and a mentor to Johnny Ervolino, used to ask for 99 on the wire in a straight pool race to 100 as well as a provision that there would be no deductions for his scratches. The catch was that Abe shot every shot with the sharp end of a pencil, so he couldn't hit the cue ball very far.

2. Larry Lisciotti was always happy to bet you that you couldn't drink a gallon of milk and go an hour without vomiting.

About 30 to 35 years ago we had a guy bet us $5.00 he could eat a draft beer glass. We bet him just to watch him cut his mouth up, the moron ate the whole glass except the thick bottom and never had a scratch.

I saw a guy bet another guy $200 that he wouldn't eat a big soup spoon full of a 3rd guy's puke after a failed attempt at a hotdog eating contest. The feller lost his $200, the guy who "won" spent much more than that at the hospital.

I didn't eat hotdogsforsome time after witnessing that.

Alex the Lion makes some very interesting bets from what I heard. Not 100 percent sure if one of them I heard is true or not so I better not disclose the bet just in case.

Kevin

One morning around 2:30 am at Table Steaks in Denver, 10-below outside, a guy won a $50 bet by standing outside for an hour, no coat, just a hoodie on.
When I went out to smoke it was too cold to finish a cigarette.
I thought it was a bad bet factoring in the potential medical bills, and treatment for frostbite.
It was ****ing cold out there

At the 2005 iowa state pool tournament i witness two huge guys (one was 400+the other 350+) race each other up an escalator that is going down,needless to say the bigger guy won the 1000$and another 750$and on side action....

A few years back while at an out of town tournament they had a "players" special for dinner, so I ask the waitress I'd like the spahgetti special, she tells me I must go the front booth and tell them etc. so I do this. A few minutes later while I'm eating my buddy comes to the table and says that looks good I'm going to get that. I tell him he has to go to the front yada yada and he say I'll just order from the waitress, I tell him it doesnt work that way and I go on to tell him if she serves you the special I'll pour this jug of water down the front of my pants. A few minutes later I had to walk around looking a drunk who just pissed himself.

Kevin Lindstrom said:

Alex the Lion makes some very interesting bets from what I heard. Not 100 percent sure if one of them I heard is true or not so I better not disclose the bet just in case.

Kevin

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If im not mistaken, he would bet something along the lines that he had the smallest penis in the room. But its been a while, so someone correct me if Im wrong. Memory is a little fuzzy.

Around Halloween a few years ago I was at the pool hall with a friend and they put out a big bowl of candy corn...he ate a couple of pieces and said he loves candy corn so much that he could eat the whole bowl...I bet him $20 he couldnt do it in an hour without puking...he threw in the towel after a few handfuls...

Not sure how interesting this is in the grander scope of things, but it is my best story, so I will tell it.

Let me preface this by stating that I am a rather large fellow 6' 5" to be exact, and at the time weighed somewhere in the range of 285.

After a night of friendly gambling with a buddy of mine, some 9 ball, some 8 ball, and then a race to 200 in 14.1... so after all was said and done, I was down about $80 total, no biggy, but it was fun.

So just messing around I stated that we could go double or nothing on a foot race (the guy I was playing was your typical abercrombie, 6 pack abs, size 32 jeans etc)... he laughed out loud and said that if i beat him in a foot race that he would give me 3 to 1 on the money... I figured, the worst that could happen is I would be out another $80, but if I won, i would be up $80... so why the hell not?

So we went outside and ran the sidewalk in front of the poolhall... somewhere between 80-100 yards, not really sure...
After he handed me the $80 dollars and caught his breath... he asked WTF just happened.

I calmly stated that you should never foot race a linebacker... LOL

In highschool I ran a 4.6, 40 yard dash at 220... so my guess is I still run it in around 5 flat.

easy money

No people with a gambling problem on this board.

not so much weird as it is funny, a degenerate gambler bets a guy he doesn't like $50 that he can beat him in a foot race for $50, well the gambler is a good 350-400lbs and there's really no chance he can win

the other guy agrees to the bet and they do it all official like "on your marks, get set" then the gambler punches the other guy in the face knocking him down and then wins the race

Pissin' contest

rezin8 said:

I was talking with a buddy of mine who brought up another bet that I had completely forgot about. We were at Tab Benoit's Lagniappe Music Cafe in Houma, LA. Both of us had to piss pretty bad and I bet him $100 that I could piss more than him. We ended up using the bartender's tip jars as it was the only thing big enough to hold the piss (and both were identical), went into the bathroom, then went back to the bar to "judge" who was the winner. Two fishbowls, full of piss, sitting on the bar. According to him, I lost the bet and threw the $100 bill into my fishbowl for him to dig out.

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Sounds like you were a sore loser. You must have been pissed!

rezin8 said:

I grew up in a pool hall... I started going to my local pool hall when I was 15. The owner knew I wasn't 18, but I didn't drink and I was good for action, so he didn't care. Now, some 22 years later, I've seem some crazy stuff go down in pool halls. From stupid weight, to stupid bets, there's not much I haven't seen, but I'd love to hear what you guys have come across over the years.

I think the craziest/sickest bet I've ever seen was the "I bet you $200 I can take a bigger shit than you" bet. I kid you not... these guys grabbed grocery bags and went into the bathroom while someone went to the store and bought a scale. The winner was accused of cheating because he had put the toilet paper in the bag.

The weirdest one I've done personally was when I was sitting outside smoking a cigarette while waiting for my match in a tournament. It was late on Sunday, it was raining, and I was bored out of my mind. A buddy and myself decided to start betting which rain drop would reach the bottom of a windshield faster. It didn't take long and we had 5 people around the hood of a truck betting $500 on rain drops.

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TRUE STORY, this happened in Chattanooga TN on a New Year's Eve, a man by the name of Bill Cox jumped up and said "I'll bet I have the shortest penis in the house", 5 or 6 men, in their drunken stupor stampeded toward the bathroom, all the men, well lets say we're big men with bellies, 10 minutes later all came out, most of them had red faces. I honestly thought Bill would be the winner of this fun bet, but to my surprise the winner, was a pool player by the name of Butch, now this surprised everyone. Good player too. I don't know how much was bet, if ANY money exchanged hands but the bet itself brought the house down with laughter. 1983-1985 time frame, True story, too!

pwd72s said:

No people with a gambling problem on this board.

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I'll bet you $50 that's not true!

nineballsafety8 said:

Not sure how interesting this is in the grander scope of things, but it is my best story, so I will tell it.

Let me preface this by stating that I am a rather large fellow 6' 5" to be exact, and at the time weighed somewhere in the range of 285.

After a night of friendly gambling with a buddy of mine, some 9 ball, some 8 ball, and then a race to 200 in 14.1... so after all was said and done, I was down about $80 total, no biggy, but it was fun.

So just messing around I stated that we could go double or nothing on a foot race (the guy I was playing was your typical abercrombie, 6 pack abs, size 32 jeans etc)... he laughed out loud and said that if i beat him in a foot race that he would give me 3 to 1 on the money... I figured, the worst that could happen is I would be out another $80, but if I won, i would be up $80... so why the hell not?

So we went outside and ran the sidewalk in front of the poolhall... somewhere between 80-100 yards, not really sure...
After he handed me the $80 dollars and caught his breath... he asked WTF just happened.

I calmly stated that you should never foot race a linebacker... LOL

In highschool I ran a 4.6, 40 yard dash at 220... so my guess is I still run it in around 5 flat.

easy money

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That's a great story but not always true. I ran track in high school, granted we didn't have much of a track team. I could run the 100 yard dash in 10.6, I wasn't the fastest on the team but a close second to the fastest. One day a bunch of bored pool players was outside and a big man, about 6'1" said, I'll run anyone here for 50 bucks to the end of the block. I thought "now this is going to be an easy 50 dollars". The man was kind of tall but had a big belly and probably weighted around 230, I'm 5'11" and 160 pounds and I RAN almost every other day. No sprints though, just jogging. Anyway we raced and I lost. I simply couldn't believe I had lost. I only lost by two or three steps but I LOST! For me, I got off cheap because I would have bet MUCH more. True story, the fellow I ran was Huey Coleman from Chattanooga TN. and Huey just got out of prison. Oh, my friend also lost money betting on me on the side. I think he lost about 20 or 30 dollars. This happen in the early 80's.

We where at a campground by one of the tracks we raced at and a bunch of people are standing out by the little country road that runs by looking at one guy. All of sudden the guy starts doing squat thrusts, stands up, pulls down his pants and fires some turds out of his backend across the street!! The guy bet he could blow turds out of his ass from one side of the road to the other. He had about 10 takers on that bet who lost money, I didn't really want to see this but how could you not watch!!:rotflmao1: I suppose this doesn't fit OPs question since it wasn't a pool hall but it was weird.