Lost Him in a Card Game: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''I won my first wife shooting dice, but I lost her in a poker game.''
[[The Bet|Gambling]] seems to be a natural human activity. We have friendly bets on when Margret's baby will be born. Not-so-friendly bets on which sports team will be victorious this year. Sometimes we stake money and sometimes the stakes are [[Bragging Rights Reward|less tangible]].
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This happens a lot with employers betting employees for whatever reason, yet the [[Justified Trope|Justification]]- betting their employment contract rather than the employees themselves- is almost never used.
Most often the card game is [[
{{examples}}
* After the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, after an almost 90-year drought, a fake ad was aired for [[Master Card]] that showed various Red Sox fans saying things like, "Oh, I'd trade my car," "I'd trade my house," "I'd trade my firstborn son for the Red Sox to win the World Series!," followed by a montage of these people's pledged items being ruthlessly confiscated - right up to the toddler who delightedly squeals, "[[Crowning Moment of Funny|Go Sox!]]" as he's carried away... It ended with the logo of two interlocking circles... followed by one circle falling away with a "snip" noise while someone voiced-over, "OW." Denis Leary had pledged his left nut.▼
** "Mastercard, proud owner of 90% of New England [*OW*] and 50% of Denis Leary's nuts" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUJ-8R4ghXU here].▼
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Done entirely seriously in the (Daniel J.) Darby the Gambler battle of ''[[
** This is approaching [[Once an Episode]] for the series, as the heroes will almost always run into a person with a Stand power that depends on gambling. Said person will also always say "GOOD!" when confirming the agreement to gamble, as if there were a family of compulsive gamblers out there...
*** Well, there ''was'' one in the third arc. Daniel had a brother, Terrence Trent Darby, who had the same power, but with video games.
* [[Tower of God|Prince]] said he'd give the indebted Yeon to the person who'd win the World's Strongest Shinsoo Competition. He really didn't count on losing against Baam, but when he does, he gives Yeon up, albeit under great protest.
* In one arc of ''[[Yami no Matsuei]]'', Tsuzuki loses his own body to Muraki in a game of poker. Hisoka deigns to save him by winning him back from Muraki.
* The soul of oneself or loved ones at stake is a common setup in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'', technically the good guys don't (usually) initiate such games; yet are forced to play them through anyway. For example, Pegasus and Kaiba duel for Mokuba's soul, which is literally in a card, and with Kaiba also offering his soul if he loses. He does, so his soul goes into the card.
* In ''[[Kaiji]]'', gamblers who didn't win enough onboard the Espoir were threatened with slave labor. Later, Kaiji is involved in quite a few gambits where his own physical health/life is on the line.
** ''[[Liar Game]]'' vaguely implies that something similar happens to its losers, but it never goes beyond the LGT making a few sinister comments about getting their money back one way or another (though the amounts involved are high enough that they clearly cannot be paid off through normal means).
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* The Davy Back Fight in ''[[One Piece]]'' is essentially a [[Loophole Abuse|sporting event]] with the competing crews members hanging in the balance.
* In ''[[Porco Rosso]]'', Fio offers herself as the stake for Porco and Curtis' duel since Porco didn't have anything else to bet. (Porco tries to object but is quickly overruled.)
* A variation of this in ''[[
* The threat of such is used as motivation for Team Hokage to win in The [[Flame of Recca]] - In order to participate in the [[Tournament Arc]], they have to stake something that the other side wants, so [[MacGuffin Girl]] Yanagi volunteers for the job.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* This almost happens to [[
==
* ''[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4081016/1/The-Poker-Game The Poker Game]'' by "Enterprise1701-D" is a ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fanfic in which Harry accidentally acquires a harem, in part because several girls bet ''themselves'' and Draco Malfoy bets Pansy Parkinson.
▲* This almost happens to [[Empowered (Comic Book)|Empowered]], except the others playing refuse to accept her as a bet due to the 'unwritten rules'- they don't want a superhero team after them just 'cause one idiot tried to use a heroine in a poker game, thanks.
* So much kinky fanfiction.▼
* [http://khakipants12.deviantart.com/art/APH-Request-Poker-Face-245028666 This] ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia
▲* After the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, after an almost 90-year drought, a fake ad was aired for [[Master Card]] that showed various Red Sox fans saying things like, "Oh, I'd trade my car," "I'd trade my house," "I'd trade my firstborn son for the Red Sox to win the World Series!," followed by a montage of these people's pledged items being ruthlessly confiscated - right up to the toddler who delightedly squeals, "[[Crowning Moment of Funny|Go Sox!]]" as he's carried away... It ended with the logo of two interlocking circles... followed by one circle falling away with a "snip" noise while someone voiced-over, "OW." Denis Leary had pledged his left nut.
▲** "Mastercard, proud owner of 90% of New England [*OW*] and 50% of Denis Leary's nuts" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUJ-8R4ghXU here].
== [[Film]] ==
* The whole point of the [[Shirley Temple]] film ''[[Little Miss Marker]]''.
* In ''[[Benny and Joon]]'', Joon wins Sam in a poker game.
** A bit of an inversion. She lost. Sam's cousin had been trying to get rid of him by betting the responsibility of taking care of him.
* In ''[[Star Wars]]: Episode I'', Anakin is won in a podracing bet. And whether it was Anakin or his mother was decided by a [[Call a Rabbit
** In Episode V, it is revealed that Lando lost the Millennium Falcon to Han in a similar fashion. The way they talk about that ship, [[Cargo Ship|it could be considered a person.]]
* In the [[Richard Pryor]]/Jackie Gleason movie ''The Toy'', one of the sordid stories about U.S. Bates (Gleason) was that he won his servant Barkley in a game of pool.
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* An unfortunate man lost his wife to the brewer in ''[[Yojimbo]].''
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* Saki did this, also with a cook.
*
* ''[[Gone
* In the ''[[Star Wars]]'' book series, Han wins a planet in a card game that turns out to be inhabited. By a [[Witch Species]], to boot. And of course, it's been long established that the transfer of everyone's favourite [[Cool Ship]] from Lando to Han occurred in the same way.
** In one book, Han and Leia (who'd had an almighty row a couple of chapters earlier) run into an old acquaintance of his, and when Leia asks him how they met he names the trope all but word for word. Leia was ''not'' amused, and Han has to rather quickly reassure her that he was a slave-owner for no longer than it took to file the necessary manumission paperwork.
* [[Erast Fandorin]] bet the heroine against a donkey in "The Turkish Gambit" (both the book and the movie), for a lack of any money or means of transportation. But then, as he is quick to point out, he was [[Born Lucky]], and so knew he was not risking anything.
* ''Last Call'' by [[Tim Powers]] is about a poker player who ''thought'' he won a huge pot in a game years ago... only to discover that he traded away his body and soul to the guy organizing the game. And now he's got to win it back before the guy comes to collect...
* On more than one occasion, [[
* Hawk from the ''[[Hawk And Fisher]]'' novels once claimed to have lost his missing eye in a card game, although he was joking.
* In ''Chess With A Dragon'', some insectoid aliens are shown engaged in some sort of gambling game. The biggest loser of the evening is said to be dangerously close to "gracing the table", i.e. becoming dinner for the winners.
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* In one of [[Georgette Heyer]]'s short stories, a man bets his half-sister in a game of hazard. She's so angry that she leaves willingly enough (with the hero, who she's in love with) and punishes the hero for playing the game by threatening to cause a scandal and make him marry her (as he's engaged to someone else).
* One of the characters in Jeannette Winterson's ''The Passion'' bets his own life in a card game {{spoiler|and loses. But he says it was worth it.}}
* In the course of a long night of dice, Athos of ''[[The Three Musketeers (
* This happens to the protagonist in one of [[
* Bryony House in Jacqueline Carey's ''Terre d'Ange'' books is the only one whose adepts will gamble for their favours. It is said they very rarely lose. Hyacinthe's mother, a virgin at the time, was wagered by her cousin. Three guesses how that turned out.
* One of [[Roald Dahl]]'s short stories concerns a man who bets his daughter's hand in marriage that a wine-taster cannot figure out exactly where a wine came from. As the story goes on the wine taster only gets closer and closer to the truth, much to the daughter's horror. {{spoiler|At the end it turns out the reason he was getting so close was that he had peeked at the label before, and though the resolution isn't shown, one can presume this means the bet is off.}}
* In the [[Liaden Universe]] novel ''Plan B'', there's a character who's fallen so low that not only did his last master stake him in a card game, the bet was that the loser had to keep him.
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* In ''[[Stephanie Plum|Plum Lucky]]'', Diesel adds Stephanie to the pot in a high-stakes poker game. Fortunately for her (the opponent is highly unpleasant), Diesel wins.
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* ''[[News Radio]]'' did this with Bill, who is appalled when he learns that he was bet against a mixing board until he's told the board is worth millions. It is explained as being ''a clause in Bill's contract.'' Being lost in a card game is apparently defined as an act of God, as the contract ''refers to Jimmy James as God.''
* ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' does this with a man bargaining his daughter off for marriage.
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* Borderline example in ''[[Knight Rider]]'': Michael deliberately lost KITT in a game with the episode's bad guy, as part of a plan to take him down. Unfortunately he didn't bother to ''explain it to KITT'' beforehand.
* An episode of ''[[The Odd Couple]]'' has Oscar lose Felix to guest star Bobby Riggs as a glorified butler. Oscar offers to try to win his freedom back but Felix wins it back himself by holding a note longer than Riggs.
{{quote|
'''Felix''': No you won't. You'll lose double or nothing and I'll have to bring in my brother from Buffalo! }}
* Lampshaded in [[Family Ties]] when Alex takes his sister along to a card game with his buddies, and loses her. Whereupon on giving up searching he goes home to recoup. His dad says, "You lost your sister in a card game?"
**What makes the incident funny is that Alex is comically greedy and cynical. He would never have actually wagered his sister. But you can sort of imagine him doing so.
* In ''The Beiderbecke Affair'', Jill Swinburne loses her boyfriend, Trevor Chaplain, to his former fiancee, Helen of Tadcaster, in a coin-toss after a night of heavy drinking. Mrs Swinburne honours her agreement with Helen, but Mr Chaplain goes back to her anyway because "nobody wins me at the toss of a coin." It is strongly suggested that this is a new development in Trevor's persona since the time when he and Helen were engaged.
* A ''[[Simon]]'' episode featured Duke Stone at a poker table betting his butler because he was ''two'' dollars short of the money needed to match the last bet and his nephew wouldn't allow him to pay later. Simon won that round. In the end, Duke offered his gardener in exchange to get his butler back.
* Subverted on ''[[Parks and Recreation]]'' when Andy "won" Ann from Mark in a pool game:
{{quote|
'''Ann''': Thanks. You tried.
'''Mark''': I guess you're his now.
'''Ann''': Do you want to get out of here?
'''Mark''': I do.
'''Ann''': Okay. Bye, Andy.
''[they leave, cut to [[Confession Cam]]]''
'''Andy''': I know that legally Ann is now mine, but it weirdly doesn't feel that way.
''[the next day]''
'''Ann''': I hope I'm not going to have to explain to you that you don't actually own me.
'''Andy''': Of course not. [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|I never for one second thought that that was for real.]] }}
* The final season of ''My Hero (TV)|My Hero]]'' opens with George betting his body in a poker game, forcing him to get a replacement, played by a [[The Nth Doctor|different actor]].
== [[Oral Tradition]], [[Folklore]], Myths and Legends ==
* This is the driving feature behind the Pandavas' exile in the ''[[
==
* In ''31 Minutos'', a comedy show about a news program run by puppets, it's commented that a member of the crew, who has a gambling problem, bet his own aunt. [[Rule of Funny|Hilariously, the character in question defends himself saying that he won the game, so now he has two aunts.]]▼
▲* This is the driving feature behind the Pandavas' exile in the ''[[Mahabharata (Literature)|Mahabharata]]''. Yudishtra, the Crown Prince, has but one fault - a propensity to gamble. His evil Uncle Shakuni invites him to gamble with his cousin who craves the throne. However, Shakuni has cheating dice. Yudisthra bets and loses everything he owns and then begins to wager his brothers, then himself, then his wife, Draupadi. She is dragged, shrieking, by her hair, into the assembly, and is ordered to be stripped. As they do it, she cries out to Lord Krishna, who transforms her sari into a neverending sari. When they fall down from exhaustion from pulling at the folds, she delivers such an impassioned and resentful speech at Yudisthra's family - her in-laws after all - about her vile treatment, that they agree to give the brothers back their lives and change it to exile from the kingdom instead.
== Radio ==▼
* In the ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' story "The Stones of Venice", the Duke of Venice gambled his wife away in a game of chance. In response, she put a hundred-year curse on the city, and the Doctor and Charley arrive the day before the curse is due to take effect.▼
▲== [[Radio]] ==
▲* In the ''[[
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Happens to several people in a ''really'' high-stakes poker game among supernatural beings, in a fictional interlude of the ''Underworld'' RPG rulebook. Souls, sanity, intellects and destinies were all laid on the table once the betting got hot.
* A supernatural poker game also occurs in the ''To Go'' module for ''[[
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* ''[[Grandia III]]'' has [[Lovable Rogue]] Alonso trying to win his ship back from the (female) casino owner who won it earlier in a rigged game. When he runs out of material possessions to bet, he bets himself: if he loses, he'll marry the owner (who has been after him for years, but is quite ugly in both face and personality).
* Happens in [[Ace Attorney]] to {{spoiler|Kristoph Gavin}}.
* In ''[[
▲* In ''31 Minutos'', a comedy show about a news program run by puppets, it's commented that a member of the crew, who has a gambling problem, bet his own aunt. [[Rule of Funny|Hilariously, the character in question defends himself saying that he won the game, so now he has two aunts.]]
==
* ''[[Friendly Hostility]]'': Collin wins Bootsie in a poker game. As well, Rafi loses toddler Fatima in a poker game (to a pair of friendly cannibals hosting a dinner party!) and he and Padma must scramble to retrieve her.
* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', Riff at one point mentions that his assistant (when he ran a company for anti-monster equipment) lost her family to vampires. He then specifies that she lost them in a poker game.
* In ''[[SSDD|S.S.D.D.]]'' Tessa apparently won her robot boyfriend Sticks in a card game, granted he was a just sex robot and wasn't fully self-aware until Tessa modified him (to make him more interesting for resale).
* ''[[Collar 6]]'': Sixx bet herself ( {{spoiler|She wins}}).
* ''[[Married to The Sea
* In ''[[Dilbert]]'', when the [[Pointy-Haired Boss]] was trying his hand as a professional gambler, [http://dilbert.com/strip/2017-12-13 this happened].
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In an episode of ''[[
** More plausible in that he didn't bet the sponge himself, but Spongebob's ''contract of employment.''
* In an episode of ''[[King of the Hill]]'', Hank is lost by his boss Buck Strickland to rival propane shop owner M. F. '''[[Phrase Catcher|Thatherton!]]'''
* Subverted in ''[[The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack]]''. K'nuckles bets Flapjack in a card game, and wins, getting another cabin boy as the prize. However, Flapjack is so insulted about this that he leaves and becomes a banker.
* Happened in an episode of ''[[Johnny Bravo]]'' where Johnny was bet and lost by Momma to a big game hunter [[Villainous Glutton|(a character homage to Sydney Greenstreet)]] in a poker game. He cheated in an obvious manner but it took the length of the episode for Momma to realize this and come to Johnny's rescue.
* On the season 12 ''[[The Simpsons (
** One of the comics ended up with Smithers temporarily being Homer's assistant under similar circumstances.
** In the episode "The Burns and the Bees", Mr. Burns and some other billionaires were reunited for a card game and Burns added Smithers into the pot. Rich Texan said that, since they were betting people, he'd add his basketball team. Despite thinking they're "hardly worth a Smithers", Burns accepted it. And won.
** Burns and Rich Texan once [[All or Nothing|waged all their wordly possessions]] on a scavenger hunt. Once Rich Texan won, he started riding Smithers as if he was another prize. Sure, Smithers' employment contract was more likely to be linked to the power plant rather than Mr. Burns but still...
* ''[[Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi]]'' "Bad Manager" Kaz bets Ami and Yumi in a game of [[Rock-Paper-Scissors]]. Different game, same plot. Slick Shady, who won the girls, actually did a better job managing their careers than Kaz usually does. Despite this, Ami and Yumi challenged for a [[Rock-Paper-Scissors]] game for the right to return to Kaz.
* ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
* In an episode of [[Hey Arnold!]] the freeloader Oscar bets the baby he's supposed to be looking after in a high-stakes poker game after he realizes he's out of chips. The other players refuse to accept this and storm out. Turns out Oscar had a royal flush, so it's not ''as'' bad as it looks.
* In an episode of ''[[The Mask (
== Other Media ==▼
▲== Other ==
▲* So much kinky fanfiction.
* Happens to the the narrator of the song "My Mother Was A Chinese Trapeze Artist" by [[The Decemberists]].
{{quote|
* Not too long after [[Walt Disney]] left [[Universal Studios]]
▲* [http://khakipants12.deviantart.com/art/APH-Request-Poker-Face-245028666 This] ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia (Manga)|Hetalia]]'' fanart.
* A cartoon that appeared in ''[[Playboy]]'' shows a woman, kneeling on a bed, starting to strip out of her negligee. As the man standing in front of her apologetically admits, "I didn't actually win you -- your husband folded his hand."
▲* Not too long after [[Walt Disney]] left [[Universal Studios]]--orphaning his proto-[[Mickey Mouse|Mickey]] character [[Oswald the Lucky Rabbit]]--[[Walter Lantz]] won the rights to Oswald in a poker game with company founder Carl Laemmle.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* Happened to American slaves before 1865 or to Russian serfs.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20071223140100/http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=35432&in_page_id=2 Happened in Russia in 2007]. The wife was so pissed off, she willingly left with the winner.
* In Aztec society, apparently betting was such [[Serious Business]] that people would occasionally bet themselves into slavery.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Servant Tropes]]▼
[[Category:Bargain Tropes]]
[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]
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