intelligent gambling

gambling is something i always treat with a bit of care...i'm not against gambling in principle, but at face value, losing money for the sake of winning more at questionable odds is something that doesn't quite fit my list of entertaining or profitable things to do :D

i made an exception today. i gambled a bit. i'm still not sure if i won or not. or if it was even counted as gambling.

it was like this: vsnl (i'm a lifetime customer of their ISP service, except that i don't use dialup anymore :P) sent me a mail offering to check my iq. out of curiosity i clicked the link. turns out there was some prize money involved for the highest scorer of the week. 999 bucks. even better. i clicked next. turns out i have to pay 99 bucks to take the test. damn!

so i can win 900 bucks or lose 99 bucks. it all depends on how intelligent (or dumb) everyone else who takes the test is. i'm betting on my intelligence to win money. thankfully for me, i have quite a competitive iq score (shall be modest. shall not elaborate.) so i decided to place my bet. my bet gets called on friday.

suddenly realization gave me a friendly whack to the back of my head. i've been gambling on my intelligence all my life. sometimes for money, sometimes to pass my exams, sometimes to get away scot free from mischef or laziness (in this case, sometimes = all the time :D).

everything in life, however trivial, involves a potential loss, a potential gain, and a probability for attaining the gain.

"life is a gamble"
-Kris