Dictionary

side bet en · NOUN

Meanings

1. A bet on some aspect of a game or competition that is not the main bet of the game or the prize of the competition.
   • Start off the dice-rollin' mats for craps to cee-lo / With side-bets, I roll a deuce, nothin' below 1994, “Memory Lane (Sittin’ in da Park)”, in Illmatic, performed by Nas:
   • Craps is also worth mentioning because of the possibility of making a curious side bet in which you can bet with the house; that is, against the player throwing the dice. 2011, Alex Bellos, Alex's Adventures in Numberland, page 314:
   • Developing a lucrative side bet for baccarat, blackjack, craps, or roulette may be an attractive pursuit for a casino game designer because the basic game is in place; the side bet can be marketed to casinos as an add-on to a game already on offer. 2021, Mark Bollman, Mathematics of The Big Four Casino Table Games:
   • A hand can come up where the right play for the tournament is the wrong play for your side bet. 2007, David Sklansky, Tournament Poker for Advanced Players, page 117:
   • The fight lasted ten minutes and along with the championship of New Jersey, Banks won a side bet of $50. 1938, Black Dynamite, page 96:
   • However, even if the harm of using side bets exceeds the benefit, the parties would still have an incentive to place side bets on the outcome of the trial once the jury starts deliberating. 1997, The Journal of Legal Studies - Volume 26, page 88:
2. An investment or risk undertaken by a company that is not part of its core business.
   • They do this by attempting to ensure the success and development of a strong, secure but flexible business, but also by continually experimenting with 'side-bet' ventures. 2009, Linda Holbeche, Aligning Human Resources and Business Strategy, page 412:
   • P&G's speculative side-bet was responsible for virtually all of its losses, and the devil was definitely in the details of this transaction. 2018, John Marthinsen, Risk Takers: Uses and Abuses of Financial Derivatives:
   • A telling example of managing a side bet can be seen in the Garcia Tuñon company of Venezuela, which for two generations had specialized in a General Motors dealership through considerable economic and political turbulance. A third-generation wanted to continue the dealership and related businesses but also to diversify away from the car industry without incurring too much reputational risk. So while managing and growing the core business, he tinkered with Internet-based business opportunities but kept these explorations away from the company brand to preserve the legacy in case they did not work. 2016, Allan Cohen, Pramodita Sharma, Entrepreneurs in Every Generation, page 135:
   • While this may reflect the relative low-key presence of small business representatives in Washington, I think it more reflects the basic prejudice of the small business case by the indifference and inattention of policy-makers to what they regard as a side-bet or peripheral issue regarding small business. 1979, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Small Business. Subcommittee on Special Small Business Problems, Impact of Federal Regulation on Small Business, page 24:
3. An investment of time, money, or resources that reinforces one's commitment to a course of action.
   • It is assumed in these studies, for instance , that : (1) age "is" a side bet because the longer an employee is in an organization the more benefits he has "built up" and that (2) the nature or the correlation between age and desire to stay in the organization is used as confirming or disconfirming evidence of the side bet stature of the age variable. 1987, International Review for the Sociology of Sport - Volume 22, page 256:
   • Side bets aren't always explicit, nor do they necessarily involve money. A side bet occurs anytime you do something that increases the consequences, or losses, of not staying with it. 2014, Heidi Reeder, Commit to Win:
   • There is little, if any, literature on the concept of a side-bet reemergence on the occasion of an employee relinking with a previous supervisor. 2016, Deborah Blackman, Michael O’Donnell, Stephen Teo, Human Capital Management Research:
   • Any decision about the new job involves a financial side bet the pension fund has placed for him by its rules. 2017, Fanny Ginor, Sociological Work: Method and Substance:

Forms

Synonyms

proposition bet · prop bet