Proposition bet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007)

In gambling, a proposition bet (also called a side bet, prop bet, prop, or exotic) is a bet made on an outcome or a proposition. These can be anything from statistics and happenstance in a regular game to personal, one-of-a-kind bets. Examples of the former include betting on which team scores first in a match, or which cards are flopped in poker. An example of a one-of-a-kind bet was David Grey betting Howard "The Professor" Lederer, a vegetarian due to gastric bypass surgery, $10,000 that he wouldn't eat a cheeseburger. (Lederer ate the cheeseburger, and won.) Thomas Austin "Amarillo Slim" Preston wrote about some of the most famous prop bets in history in his 2003 book, Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People (ISBN 0060762306).

In casino games, the house often offers proposition bets (which are usually called side bets) on games like blackjack and craps. These bets are often not favored by experienced gamblers as the house edge on them far exceeds the house edge on the normal game. For example, the Super 7's side bet in blackjack has a house edge of 12.6%, while blackjack itself has a house edge of less than 1% if the player follows basic strategy.

Proposition Bets have also been used in the BBC The Real Hustle.