Bar bets / riddles / tricks

Curious if anyone has any good bar tricks / riddles

Had a handful I used in college to meet girls

One neat one a magician friend taught me goes like this:

Ask an individual to take the number 5 and place another 5 next to it and say the new number - “55”. Then tell them you want them to start at 5 and add another 5 and say the new number. Ask them to keep doing this out loud until you tell them to stop - ie. “5” “55” “555” etc. ( you may need to explain this part a little by helping them start the sequence). Tell them that you will then tell them to stop and immediately ask them a question and they need to remember the first thing that comes to mind.

So this will basically go:

Me: Please start the count at 5.

Person: 5 , 55 , 555, 5555, etc
(Stop them at 5,555,555)

Me: Think of the first vegetable that comes to mind.

Person: ok

Me: there’s a lot of vegetables so I get two guesses. I think it’s....

Please try the sequence before looking at next post

Was the answer carrot 🥕. If not possibly tomato 🍅. Not sure why but frequency on carrot was 60%+. Tomato was probably 10-15%

There’s a great book from when I was young called Games You Can’t Lose: A Guide For Suckers by Harry Anderson (of Night Court fame). I have very fond memories of the bar bets in there.

Yes. Harry was great.

Pick a number 1-6 and roll 3 dice

Hit your number once, get paid even money
Hit your number twice, get paid 2 to 1
Hit your number three times, get paid 3 to 1

Look, you got three chances at hitting a 1 in 6 event, so that’s a 50% chance of winning the lowest prize. So you as the player have the advantage

Quote: linksjunkie

Was the answer carrot 🥕. If not possibly tomato 🍅. Not sure why but frequency on carrot was 60%+. Tomato was probably 10-15%
link to original post

NLP is interesting.

Quote: linksjunkie

Was the answer carrot 🥕. If not possibly tomato 🍅. Not sure why but frequency on carrot was 60%+. Tomato was probably 10-15%
link to original post

The tomato is a fruit not a vegetable.

I can’t remember where I heard this one but it is surprising.

Shuffle a deck of cards thoroughly. Let them shuffle the cards if they wish. Let bystanders shuffle the deck. Doesn’t matter. There’s no slight of hand here. Then tell the person you will flip over the cards one by one. If any one card is in the order it would be in a new unshuffled deck, they win. Basically they have 52 opportunities to win. Offer to lay 10:1 against. You can even go up to 15:1 or 20:1.

(From what I recall, the true odds of at least one card matching its correct new deck position are something like 22:1).

I thought this was surprising but presumes that the person is somewhat familiar with the order of cards in a new deck.

Quote: DRich

The tomato is a fruit not a vegetable.

SCOTUS would disagree with you!