Nine bar bets you can't lose

Paul sez, "I'm the writer and presenter of the hit BBC3 show 'The Real Hustle', and I've just released a new video to promote my one-man show, 'Lie. Cheat. Steal. Confessions of a Real Hustler' at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe. 'Free Drinks Forever' teaches nine entertaining proposition bets for you to fool and fleece your friends. Please cheat responsibly. See here for tickets and more information."

Paul Wilson – conartist.tv (Thanks, Paul!)

• [cellocgw]

  Didn’t you post this a few weeks ago?

• [Boundegar]

  Excellent production values, but the bets themselves are ones I learned in Boy Scouts over a century ago.

  And no, I think that was a different bar bet video.

• [relawson]

  The “coin line” rules and “odd coins in a glass” answer logic may be a little hard to understand to a mark… er, friend, if they have already been drinking a while. 

• [Richard Thames]

  Brian Brushwood’s been hosting a weekly show doing this stuff for years.. check out http://scamschool.tv 

• [catherinecc]

  Wouldn’t this get your ass kicked?

  • [Rhyme79]

    Sounds like the type of bars you frequent are pretty rough!

• [feetleet]

  Did you know you can always predict a coin flip, as long as you’re the one tossing it?  At least with American quarters – even the new ones – you just scratch your thumb nail along the surface while flapjacking it onto the top of your other hand.  Tails is recognizably rough, heads is smooth.  It’s extremely inconspicuous – because practically everyone does that cheesy flip move at the end – for anticipation, showmanship, whatever.  But the jig may be up as soon as someone starts insisting on tossing the coin themselves.  In that case, take your 50/50 shot – heads you confess – tails you BLOW THEIR FREAKIN MIND!!!!  That’s the only one of these bar tricks I’ve ever tried – I really can’t imagine saying “Garcon, a very particularly shaped dish, a shot of water and ten of your freshest toothpicks, please,” with a straight face.  “Oh and while you’re at it, I’d like a whole matchbook that I can burn in this 12 dollar egg & falernum coup of a coupe you just mixologized.  Look it’s sucked up into the glass! Semantics win!  Oh, well, no, I don’t actually know how to get it out without spilling everywhere…You should have thought of that before you gave a minor liquor.”

• [penguinchris]

  I like good simple tricks as much as the next person but I don’t understand why these are always presented as “bar bets” – does anyone actually try to fleece people with these types of tricks? Isn’t it obvious if someone proposes such a bet that they know they’re going to win?

  • [ldobe]

     Remember, the drunker I get, the better you look.  I would think that bars are the easiest place to pull a fast one on an unsuspecting inebriate.

• [vancoovermellencamp]

  We must have different definitions of “not touching things in any way”. 1) Since I could just as easily suck up the liquid with a straw and put it in the glass, I assume he means not to touch things with other things as well. So… matches, glass? 4) One glass is clearly not “in” the other, but “on” the other.  5) Again, touching the glasses with other objects is still touching the glasses. 9) He’s “touching” the toothpicks with the water. Couldn’t I just as easily make them disappear by setting them on fire and saying they have 5 points in heaven? Most of my drinking companions are fellow scientists, for whom the experimental conditions matter. Point being, he’d lose 4 of the 9 bets for violating his own rules.

• [unaboomer]

  Alternative title suggestion: 9 ways to keep the bar stools empty around you at a bar by being an annoying weirdo.