I think you have a point here. Newton seems to have been encouraged in his mathematical/physical pursuits by several people early in his career, when he was st

I think you have a point here. Newton seems to have been encouraged in his mathematical/physical pursuits by several people early in his career, when he was studying and, later, a young professor at Cambridge. This kind of slow work and accumulating recognition (by a series of Cambridge alums up through the Lucasian professor at the time, throughout 1661 to 1672) is not really well-described as a "bet".