Thanks to everyone who participated in this bet. It was a great social experiment for me to find out who my true friends were, and also to entertain the community (which is my true purpose on these forums and always will be). Unfortunately, it looks like I lost the bet. This means I'll need to pay out exactly as described in my original thread OP.
...
Nice. For a variety of reasons, I don't do 'bets' very much. Mostly only when I can be sure I will win, and I tend to have a high bar for 'certainty'. In this case I was pretty sure I would not win because I was pretty sure that there is no way in hell you could come up with the BTC even if you are crazy enough to not welch. Were I to have decided to bet for some reason I would have studied the OP most carefully and may or may not have spotted your trick. Since you don't seem like the kind of guy who would be in with pirateat40, and are probably to bright to trust him even if you thought you had info, I was pretty sure that you would be pulling something along these lines.
In my opinion your act was clearly a 'scam' (as much as I appreciate it) and you should wear the 'scammer' tag. Hopefully with as much grace as bannanula. I think it would be kinda cool of a staff member of this forum had a scammer tag. It would demonstrate the open-minded and honest nature of the forum, and would have a legitimate benefit of warning people to be careful when doing business with you.