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>The court also upheld the lower court's conclusion that the $517,000 wager was excessive. Quebec courts are not arguing that Rock Paper Scissors is not a game
by flyGuyOnTheSly 6y ago
>The court also upheld the lower court's conclusion that the $517,000 wager was excessive.
Quebec courts are not arguing that Rock Paper Scissors is not a game of skill.
They only ruled that the bet was "excessive" which is against the law.
IANAL, but betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive imho.
I am thoroughly impressed that the loser actually made good on their commitment though and took out the mortgage on his house!
My friends would try every angle to weasel their way out of a $100 light hearted bet!
- Quanttek 6y agoThis does not hold true for the appellate court's decision: > While it found the game may call up a certain measure of skill, "it seems evident … that the game also involves a large part of chance, so that it does not take 'only skill or bodily exertion on the part of the parties,'" the court concluded.
- cat199 6y ago> betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive wouldn't this depend on income/assets of those involved?
- hedora 6y agoI think the fact that a mortgage was taken out to pay off the debt was used to argue the loser didn’t have adequate assets to cover the bet, and that it was excessive. I suspect if it was Bill Gates vs. Larry Ellison they wouldn’t have been able to argue the wager was excessive.
- aspenmayer 6y agoThat last line sounds like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
- npo9 6y ago> My friends would try every angle to weasel their way out of a $100 light hearted bet! I mean, the guy went to court to weasel out of the bet.
- grawprog 6y agoFrom the article, >the Superior Court cancelled that mortgage in a 2017 decision, which was appealed by Michel Primeau, who beat Hooper in the game of rock paper scissors — and won the $517,000 wager. Seems like the court itself decided to cancel the mortgage and the winner was the one who decided to appeal it in court.
- ellyagg 6y agoHow did the Superior Court become aware of it? I doubt they routinely study home mortgages...
- grawprog 6y agohttps://www.iheartradio.ca/cjad/news/quebec-appeals-judge-invalidates-517-000-debt-incurred-following-rock-paper-scissors-games-1.12227564 https://www.iheartradio.ca/cjad/news/quebec-appeals-judge-in... >This gambling debt had even been recognized in a notarized contract and had led to the registration of a mortgage on the house of the loser, Edmund Mark Hooper. >The mortgage was canceled by a judgment rendered by a Quebec Superior Court judge in 2017. Because it was on a notorized contract. The guy that won is a huge asshole honestly.
- liamcardenas 6y agoWhy is no one talking about the true jerk in this situation? The guy legally forcing the other to mortgage his house in order to give him $500k — because of rock, paper, scissors...
- TuringNYC 6y agoWell, we do not know what would happen if the situation were opposite. They both entered into the agreement, presumably seriously. It seems like just playing the game qualifies both sides as jerks.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hedora 6y agoThe court argues it is a game of skill but follows up with: > it seems evident … that the game also involves a large part of chance, so that it does not take 'only skill or bodily exertion on the part of the parties,' They would have invalidated the bet even if wasn’t “excessive”. Presumably, the law also bans wagers on gambling activities, such as poker.
- airstrike 6y agoI love playing cards, but poker is just... not as much fun because there's too much luck involved compared to, say, Rummy-type games (like my biased favorite, the Brazilian Buraco: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buraco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buraco)
- gpderetta 6y agoBurraco (that's how's called here) is fairly popular in Italy as well. My family has been playing it for generations and has been a staple of family reunions.
- airstrike 6y agoMy family has a lot of long-lost Italian influence (my father is called Mario, same as 5 other relatives including great-grandfather, uncles and cousins...) so I'm not surprised it's popular there! My family actually called it Biriba, which I learned is the name of the Greek variant, though our rules were closer to Buraco... Now I wonder what your family rules are! A lot of people restrict the types of runs you can play (like only allowing grouped runs with for face cards and aces, or banning groups altogether), but my grandpa was a beast at the game so we played with pretty open rules which actually made the game more aggressive – i.e. wait too much to act and you'll fall behind, but play too open early on and you give away your strategy.
- gpderetta 6y agoToday we play with the official Italian rules, but even before, we actually had only very small divergence (you were not allowed to clean dirty plays, you could play a tris of deuces and you could discard a decue as your last card); also we used to play to 2000 points instead of three games. More interesting is that we actually called the game canasta, which actually is a different but related game.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoJesus, you need new friends. "Weasel" is not a word you want to associate with people you should be able to trust.
- billly 6y agoIf you don't have at least one "weasel" friend, you need more friends.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 6y agoIf you don't have any weasely friends, you just may be their weasel!
- tinus_hn 6y agoIt is possible to both have friends you would trust with your life and friends you wouldn’t.
- globular-toast 6y ago> I am thoroughly impressed that the loser actually made good on their commitment though and took out the mortgage on his house! Well he didn't commit to it because he went to court to get out of it.
- jon_elbrook 6y ago>but betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive imho. vegans think meat eating is excessive. let's ban meat eating, then?
- kingofpandora 6y ago> >but betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive imho. > vegans think meat eating is excessive. let's ban meat eating, then? The only way your analogy would make any sense would be if there were a law on excessive eating.
- jon_elbrook 6y agothere would be if some people had their way
- arbitrary_name 6y agoThere would also still be legal slavery and segregation if some people had their way. What's your point?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- apta 6y agoI disagree with the excessive argument. The argument should be to completely ban gambling, because it's been proven to be a harmful practice on society, whether practiced in excess or not.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 6y agoWagers on games of skill are not a gamble. Gambling can only be performed with games of chance.
- icebraining 6y ago
- lowdose 6y agoThe rule with friends is to put money on the table immediately and agree on a deposit space/person until the outcome. Otherwise it is a sissy bet & thereby things we don't engage with. The whole betting ritual is a masculinity proxy and proposed solution is levering the fact that people that say A are willingly to agree on B at more at that moment in time than afterwards.
- michaelcampbell 6y ago> IANAL, but betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive imho. Good thing 'L' is not based on 'o' then. How many finger (not even hand) gestures does it take to click "buy" on a stock broker's app?
- ycombobreaker 6y agoNot the same thing. The hand gestures of the rock, paper, scissors game constitute the entirety of the result. whereas, the actions of the entire company over time, coupled with immeasurably complex interactions with the rest of the world, constitute the result of a stock trade. You can choose to gamble with stock by buying and selling randomly, but that is a property of your behavior, not the entirety of the system.
- danso 6y agoYeah, after the dust settles on the legal battle, I would love to hear the Canadian version of "This American Life" get the full backstory on this. Were these guys pals playing in the living room or at the bar, or was it between strangers at some kind of underground RPS parlor? The latter seems ridiculous, but so does the former, since I imagine it would involve the loser saying "C'mon man you can't be serious?" for weeks, at least. I couldn't find more indepth coverage in the recent news, but here's a relatively lengthy article from 2017 (before the recently ruled-on appeal): https://www.fasken.com/en/knowledge/2017/12/can-you-legally-bet-half-million-dollars-on-a-game-of-rock-paper-scissors/ https://www.fasken.com/en/knowledge/2017/12/can-you-legally-... It doesn't go into the personal details (or link to the source court documents), but it does say that the men (both "experienced businessmen", which I assume means: "guys with expendable wealth") signed the notarized contract after the game: > After the match, the winner had the loser sign a notarized recognition of debt contract that was secured by a hypothec (mortgage) over the loser’s house. The winner subsequently attempted to enforce the gambling debt and hypothec, leading to litigation. I'm intrigued why the loser signed the notarized contract at all if he was planning to fight it in court.
- Gene_Parmesan 6y agoI mean, the pretty obviously missing link to all of this would appear to be "copious amounts of alcohol." Can you even imagine THAT hangover?
- btilly 6y agoMy guess is that he wasn't planning to fight it, then got home and his wife said, "You did WHAT???"
- jpambrun 6y agoPerhaps at the time he figured he had more too lose if their business relationship was to sour.
- kova12 6y agoI wonder if there's any legal prohibition against excessive bets in canada. Is there a law or doctrine that invalidates such contracts, or is it just courts saying "this doesn't look right to us, therefore it is invalid"
- choward 6y ago> IANAL, but betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive imho. To you it may be, but where do you draw the line though? Is $100,000 excessive? $10,000? $1,000? Tbh, $1,000 does actually sound excessive to me.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 6y agoThe definition of "excessive" is "more than is necessary, normal, or desirable; immoderate." according to a quick Google search. I would argue that the wager was for more than a necessary amount, and definitely not normal. How often do you hear about half million dollar RPS games, really?
- valuearb 6y agoI have multiple friends who have lost or won a quarter million in a day of gambling. In some circles this is not uncommon.
- ramblerman 6y ago> IANAL, but betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive imho. IANAL either but to me the law/government is there to uphold contracts. Not judge if they are smart or deemed a good idea.
- chrstphrhrt 6y agoBut you can't contract to do something illegal, and contracts must have consideration ("this for that"). Not sure what their test for excessiveness was. Reminds me of predatory lending rules like charging more than X% interest is excessive.
- Heliosmaster 6y agoNot really. I can't contract you to do something illegal for me (e.g. kill somebody, even me!). Now, if you are saying that these kind of contracts SHOULD be valid, that's another thing but that's not the case at the moment (and rightly so, imo)
- kazinator 6y agoThe validity of hit contracts should probably be upheld in the following way: the contractee must pay the amount (in addition to whatever penalties they face), but that money is seized. It could be put into a fund that helps victims' families.
- Tsarbomb 6y agoThis is such a fantastically American point of view.
- AndrewKemendo 6y agoI fully agree that it's excessive, but I admit that I have no rational basis for that position. I wonder how they would make that claim, while also acknowledging that gambling exists. You can lose 500k on roulette easily. That seems no less arbitrary