side bet

side bet (plural side bets)

1. (gambling) A bet on some aspect of a game or competition that is not the main bet of the game or the prize of the competition; proposition bet.
   • 1938, Black Dynamite, page 96:

     The fight lasted ten minutes and along with the championship of New Jersey, Banks won a side bet of $50.

   • 1997, The Journal of Legal Studies - Volume 26, page 88:

     However, even if the harm of using side bets exceeds the benefit, the parties would still have an incentive to place side bets on the outcome of the trial once the jury starts deliberating.

   • 2007, David Sklansky, Tournament Poker for Advanced Players, page 117:

     A hand can come up where the right play for the tournament is the wrong play for your side bet.

   • 2011, Alex Bellos, Alex's Adventures in Numberland, page 314:

     Craps is also worth mentioning because of the possibility of making a curious side bet in which you can bet with the house; that is, against the player throwing the dice.

   • 2021, Mark Bollman, Mathematics of The Big Four Casino Table Games:

     Developing a lucrative side bet for baccarat, blackjack, craps, or roulette may be an attractive pursuit for a casino game designer because the basic game is in place; the side bet can be marketed to casinos as an add-on to a game already on offer.

2. (business) An investment or risk undertaken by a company that is not part of its core business.
   • 1979, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Small Business. Subcommittee on Special Small Business Problems, Impact of Federal Regulation on Small Business, page 24:

     While this may reflect the relative low-key presence of small business representatives in Washington, I think it more reflects the basic prejudice of the small business case by the indifference and inattention of policy-makers to what they regard as a side-bet or peripheral issue regarding small business.

   • 2009, Linda Holbeche, Aligning Human Resources and Business Strategy, page 412:

     They do this by attempting to ensure the success and development of a strong, secure but flexible business, but also by continually experimenting with 'side-bet' ventures.

   • 2016, Allan Cohen, Pramodita Sharma, Entrepreneurs in Every Generation, page 135:

     A telling example of managing a side bet can be seen in the Garcia Tuñon company of Venezuela, which for two generations had specialized in a General Motors dealership through considerable economic and political turbulance. A third-generation wanted to continue the dealership and related businesses but also to diversify away from the car industry without incurring too much reputational risk. So while managing and growing the core business, he tinkered with Internet-based business opportunities but kept these explorations away from the company brand to preserve the legacy in case they did not work.

   • 2018, John Marthinsen, Risk Takers: Uses and Abuses of Financial Derivatives:

     P&G's speculative side-bet was responsible for virtually all of its losses, and the devil was definitely in the details of this transaction.

3. (sociology) An investment of time, money, or resources that reinforces one's commitment to a course of action.
   • 1987, International Review for the Sociology of Sport - Volume 22, page 256:

     It is assumed in these studies, for instance , that : (1) age "is" a side bet because the longer an employee is in an organization the more benefits he has "built up" and that (2) the nature or the correlation between age and desire to stay in the organization is used as confirming or disconfirming evidence of the side bet stature of the age variable.

   • 2014, Heidi Reeder, Commit to Win:

     Side bets aren't always explicit, nor do they necessarily involve money. A side bet occurs anytime you do something that increases the consequences, or losses, of not staying with it.

   • 2016, Deborah Blackman, Michael O’Donnell, Stephen Teo, Human Capital Management Research:

     There is little, if any, literature on the concept of a side-bet reemergence on the occasion of an employee relinking with a previous supervisor.

   • 2017, Fanny Ginor, Sociological Work: Method and Substance:

     Any decision about the new job involves a financial side bet the pension fund has placed for him by its rules.

• bedsite, betides, debites