Bitcoin Forum

TL;DR: There is three possible reasons why Matthew organized The Bet (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101751.0) , and only the least probable one will earn money for someone betting against him.

• Matthew is hardcore and rich gambler who is willing to bet maximum of 10k BTC in favor of low probability event, his risk vs profit evaluation isn't rational.
• He knows something about pirate40 that we don't, e.g. Matthew conspired with pirate40 or it's the same person.
• Matthew has no intention to honor the bet in case he lose.

In case you bet against Matthew N. Wright only the first option gives you a chance to earn money, but Matthew is a quite active member of the forum and we know a lot about him therefore I think that the first option is improbable.

Just because you can't think of reasons doesn't mean there aren't any.

Here's just on more out of the several I can think of:

• Huge media attention mentioning Matthew Neal Wright and Bitcoin Magazine coming up.

Massively cheaper than placing actual paid advertisement with BBC, Wired, Slashdot, Forbes, The New Yorker, etc, etc, etc, all at once.

MNW is massive entertainment in everything that he does. I have no problem betting against him even if my stance is one where I will lose. Interested in seeing how it plays out though. I hope that I lose...  8)

Your #1 is mis-stated (he's irrational, not rational). Although I can't discount #2 (conspiracy with pirate), I see #1 as more likely. This is not the first time I've thought an effort of his to be needlessly contrarian or overzealous. Before this it was his attack on aurumxchange over zhoutong.

Matthew has to be overzealous and very rich for the #1 to be likely, is he?

Maybe not rich but I don't know of any reason why he would not cover his wager if indeed he was on the payor end of it.

Just to be clear, I am not encouraging anyone to make any high risk investments... Do your homework. ;p

I am looking for insurance for my 250 BTC bet against MNW.  Either:

1) I pay a fee, and if I win my bet and MNW does not pay, you will pay the full amount
or
2) If I win my bet and MNW pays, I will give you a cut.  If I win my bet and MWN does not, you will pay my winnings.  If pirate pays and I lose the bet, we exchange nothing.

Escrow is required, unless you are someone I trust greatly.

PM with reasonable offers.

He is betting maximum of ~100,000 USD , that's a lot of money, e.g. it's a down payment for a house, why wouldn't he cover it indeed /sarcasm

You should never bet if you don't understand.

Here's a hash for later:

c399c874cb47a43291859a37a8f02c1dfe8049dcd26c3c4e7316fb71cd034275

Depends on what you mean by "very rich". Given the number of people who gave pirate 5k BTC, there's enough irrational "rich" people. 10k btc is a lot of money to you and me, but I bet that Matthew's parents have a lot more money than mine and yours.

Do you believe that Matthew has ~100,000 USD lying around that he can spend all at once?

Witnessed.

It seems he had plenty of cash to blow on the Ellet. Unless he was able to get some other guys to put cash into that.

In any event, the guy is a tool looking for attention and is probably the least professional business person I have ever talked to.

I wish there were an emoticon for "Jelly".

Sure, why not? I know many people who could.

Thanks.

What is this hash for?  It's not in the block chain....

Its like the secret file on Wikileaks  :)

^ :D