By: Samantha Williams
While some people believe that all gambling is degenerate, and anyone who partakes of gambling activities is a degenerate, this is not entirely true. However there are some people who just cannot resist a bet and these are generally masters of the “proposition bet”. They simply can’t resist seeing if someone else will take them on for money.
Professional gamblers often take side bets on games and more, and it is these characters who are often labeled (quite rightly) degenerate gamblers. My brother is like that; he would gamble on anything and would even eat a locust or an earthworm to win a dollar or two.
Everyone knows someone who encourages proposition bets and golfers are well known for it. More money is won and lost on the golf course than you might believe. A classic golfing proposition bet was by infamous gambling golf hustler Laverne Moore, he bet Bing Crosby he would beat him in the course without using golf clubs, Crosby took him on. Laverne played with a baseball bat, a hoe and a rake, and he won!
Amarillo Slim, aka Thomas Austin Preston Jnr,, a WSOP champion couldn’t resist gambling on anything, and used a carpenters hammer instead of a golf club to beat Evel Kneivel in golf. He took $300 000 off Willie Nelson in a dominos game, and beat pool playing prodigy Minnesota Fats in a game of pool using a broom. He also won a game of ping pong against tennis star Bobby Riggs, using a skillet instead of a table tennis paddle.
Huck Seed was a proposition bet loser at the best of times (its all in a name) even though he was a WSOP champ. He just couldn’t resist a gamble, no matter how ludicrous it seemed. It appears he also couldn’t win a gamble and Phil Helmuth took $50 000 off him by betting he couldn’t stand in the ocean up to his shoulders for 18 hours. Helmuth was right; Seed lost and called it off after 3 hours. Again Seed was caught out proposition gambling when he came up against Howard Lederer. Lederer bet he would beat him hopping on one foot in a 50 yard dash, Seed took him on and Lederer won against the athletic 6’6″ Seed.
Quite probably the most degenerate proposition gambler of them all is Brian Zembic – blackjack player, or perhaps not, perhaps his friends are worse degenerates. They (with friends like these, who need enemies?) bet him, he wouldn’t get breast implants. But they bet him $100 000?? Guess who had to pay up – it wasn’t Zembic; he went under the knife, got them done, and claims his 36 C’s are proper “babe Magnets”!! We wonder how long he had to walk around with them puppies?
