Quote:
Originally Posted by Rzitup
What if he was planning to pay when the bet was made, but didnt have the money after? What if he was planning to pay with money from someone else, and that person died after the bet was made?
The problem with speculating is that you can come up with a bunch of different scenarios why you might not pay. You can always find some friends that think you shouldnt. There are things that might come to light that you dont like. But the fact is, a bet was made between two people, and outside influences shouldnt alter that bet unless they directly impact it.
If you think the guy is shady, if you find out he owes other people, then pay him the debt you owe, tell others about him, and dont do business with him again.
I was asking from a moral standpoint, just curious what people think. I believe it should come down to intention; there's a huge difference between the guy meaning to pay but getting robbed for everything he has, and the guy planning to freeroll you straight from the start.
Obviously you're never really going to have that clear a situation, but I think if you believe there are theoretical situations in which one wouldn't owe the money, you should probably consider that there are real-life situations that approach those theretical situations enough to warrant steering away from the "you made a bet, you have to pay no matter what" mentality.
Also obvious is that anything more than a single-branched decision tree leads to potential crazy angle-shooting, so...in the end, I think you just need fairly unbiased arbitrators with good reasoning skills who can wade through all of the available information (betting history from both people, current financial situation, basically potential incentives not to pay, etc...) and make a decision based on all of those factors.