"Just you wait, a year from now I'll be running marathons." Your friend nods, you nod, and you both forget about it — which is convenient, because nobody writes these declarations down. Exactly: nobody used to write them down. Now you can set up a bet on the future with a deadline, witnesses and a prize that somebody will finally come to collect.
Why a bet beats a resolution
A resolution is private, so it is easy to renegotiate in November. A bet has another party, and the other party remembers. It also has a deadline, and a deadline is the one judge you cannot bribe.
In practice only one thing matters: on the day of the verdict, a letter to the future lands in everybody's inbox with the full set of answers and the prize to settle. Nobody has to remember anything. The time machine remembers.
How to set up a bet - five fields and you're done
- What you are betting on - one sentence that can be checked without an argument.
- Your answer - nobody sees it until they have answered themselves.
- The prize - dinner, a car wash, a week of taking out the bins, lifelong respect.
- The deadline - a ready-made option (three months, six months, a year, three years) or your own date, down to the hour.
- Who is playing - up to four people. Each one gets their own link and types in their answer.
Then you confirm your e-mail address, and only then do the invitations go out - so that nobody sends messages in someone else's name. The answers stay hidden until everyone has replied. No account needed.
What to bet on? Examples worth stealing
Students
- "I'll score above 80 percent in my maths final" - deadline: results day.
- "Three years from now I'll be studying in a different city from the one I live in today."
- "I won't buy a single takeaway coffee before exams." The prize: that coffee.
Sports fans
- "We'll stay up this season without a play-off."
- "Two years from now our new striker will be playing for someone else."
- "We'll win the derby" - deadline: match day, 10 p.m., so there is nothing to argue about.
Friends
- "A year from now this group chat will still exist and still nobody will post anything in it."
- "I'll learn to play that one song on the guitar before the summer."
- "Five years from now we'll meet exactly where we are sitting right now."
Couples and spouses
- "Next year we'll finally go where we've been saying we'd go for three years."
- "I'll be the first to crack and order pizza." The prize: pizza.
- "The renovation will be finished in three years" - a classic, usually lost by both sides at once.
Family
- "In five years my little brother will be taller than me."
- "At Christmas dinner grandma will say again that I don't eat enough" - deadline: 24 December, 6 p.m.
- "Ten years from now we'll still be driving this same car."
Teachers and the class
- The whole class predicts the average score of the mock exam - deadline: results day.
- "Five years from now half of us will be living abroad" - the perfect bet for the last lesson.
- How many people will show up at the school reunion? Deadline: the day of the reunion.
Three rules of a good bet
- Checkable. "I'll be happier" never settles. "I'll run ten kilometres under 55 minutes" settles in five seconds.
- With a prize somebody actually wants. The best prizes are cheap and mildly humiliating.
- With a deadline that really arrives. "Some day" is not a date. 14 June 2029 at 6 p.m. is.
Nobody to bet with? Bet against yourself
A solo bet works the same way: you type in your answer, add nobody, and on the deadline you get a letter from your past self. Statistically the most dangerous opponent - that one knows all your excuses.