Matthew, I had a pretty good sense of what you were trying to achieve with your last "wager", but I also anticipated the community's reaction to it. I'm glad to see you're trying to make things right and I think theymos made a good suggestion:
You should contact all of the people you owe money and renegotiate your debt with them. A lot of people would probably be willing to forgive your debt entirely or take only a small percentage.
Personally, your scammer tag wouldn't influence me at all in any possible future business you and I might have, but having it removed would at least eliminate the need to explain it every time you posted in a new thread.