Betting Games
October 5, 2025
This post is inspired by a desire to remember a more creative betting game that is meant to be played with friends. Unfortunately I can’t find the original authors post on it to credit them because everywhere you search anything with the word “betting” in your query is filled with promotional spam, advertising, or gain/loss porn. It is a game worth remember for those into this sort of thing, so I am writing down how it works to the best of my memory.
To begin, someone throws out a question with a definite answer (meaning Google will give a definitive answer and we accept that as law). The article, which was written by a young finance bro used the comical example of, “how many eggs do are women born with in their ovaries?”, so I’ll run with that. Pull-up world record, maximum depth of the ocean, how many baby kangaroos can fit in a mother’s pouch, or oldest tree alive would all be solid basis for the game.
Once the question is decided on, players take turns giving a confidence interval:
- Player 1: “I think I can get the answer within 100,000 eggs”
- Player 2: (who unlike the rest has no confidence in his knowledge of female anatomy), “Pass”
- Player 3: “50,000”
And so on until no one wants to narrow the confidence interval. At this point whoever has the smallest interval is essentially the house and gets to set the line. Player 3 sets the line at 250,000, which means they will win if the answer is 200,000 – 300,000.
One of the intriguing and spicy parts of this game in my opinion is that what I have been referring to as a ‘confidence interval’ is also treated as units of betting. Let’s say that Player 1 (who is confident in his knowledge of the female body) secretly believes there are 500,000 eggs in the female body. He can bet 5 units over the line against the house. This is a multiplier on the base bet ($10 in this example) and will ‘win’ if the answer is 500,001 or higher (house wins draws).
In fewer words:
- Player 3 confidence interval of 50,000 = 1 unit.
- Player 1 bets over the line of 250,000 by 5 units (250,000)
- This puts the bet size at $50 (5 units x $10 base bet)
- Player 1 wins if the answer is 500,001 or higher
I’m going to reiterate that my details of the real rules as described in the mythical blog post are fuzzy. I’m writing this down here in an attempt to remember as many of the rules as I can recollect in the future and think them through. The betting units paragraph above passes the sniff test but could certainly be fiddled with.
Another thing I’m unsure of is how participation is handled. I think that everyone who hazards a confidence interval should be on the hook to place themselves over, under, or within the final confidence interval line. Participation shouldn’t be forced on everyone in order to allow those confident in their ignorance to not be punished.
As players bet over, under (against the house), or within (with the house) the line confidence interval they are essentially taking sides. Those who place themselves with the house will equally split profits/ losses with others on the house side. Those against the house will get profit or loss proportional to the units they bet.
And that’s the game! At least it is my best recollection and should hold up well even if I didn’t get it perfect. In the long shot anyone knows who the original author is (or the name of the game), please let me know!
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