WWTBAM Bored

"Fat Chance"

All of the scores have been totaled up and all of the bets have been locked in. Here are all of the bets:

ShamelessWeasel - 100% of 57 = 57
plasticene - 100% of 49 = 49
kroxquo - 100% of 33 = 33
jarnon - 10% of 26 = 2.6
smilergrogan - pi% of 41 = 1.29
Bob Juch - 0% of 59 = 0
franktangredi - 0% of 27 = 0
Bob78164 - 0% of 10 = 0
MarleysGh0st - 0% of 10 = 0
Vandal - 0% of 4 = 0
silverscreenselect - 0% of 0 = 0
themanintheseersuckersuit - 0% of 0 = 0

So five people are taking a fat chance, three of them taking a really fat chance. To those of you who voluntarily bet 0% or didn't play yesterday, you may still answer this question for fun to see if you would have doubled your bet, lost your bet, or stayed pat.

This question has three wrong answers that I expect at least one player to give. Avoid these answers at all cost because they will cost you your bet. But find the correct answer for me and I'll double your bet. Here it is!

Adjusted for inflation, the world's all-time richest athlete made his fame and fortune in what sport? (I don't need the sportsman's name. Just his sport.)

Your answer is due by Monday 4/14 at 4 PM EDT.

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It should have been a bridge player.

Adjusted for inflation, the world's all-time richest athlete made his fame and fortune in what sport? (I don't need the sportsman's name. Just his sport.) Cricket.

--Bob

OK, it is now finally time to find out if anybody got the correct answer and if anybody got caught in one of my traps.

Adjusted for inflation, the world's all-time richest athlete made his fame and fortune in what sport?

A lot of names were probably swimming through your head on this question. Tiger Woods was the first modern athlete to have a net worth of $1 billion. Was it him, despite losing some of that money after his sexual peccadillos got exposed? Perhaps it's Alex Rodriguez, the richest baseball player of all time? What about Michael Jordan, the richest basketball player of all time? We have golf, baseball, and basketball... and they are all wrong answers. Say goodbye to your bet if you picked any of those sports. Fortunately, nobody here went for any of those obvious choices, so nobody lost any points.

The words "adjusted for inflation" probably should have hinted that it's not a recent sportsperson. Or even a living sportsperson. The correct answer is chariot racing. The man's name was Gaius Appuleius Diocles. (Like I said, I didn't really expect anybody to come up with his name, so that's why I was just looking for the sport.) He raced chariots for 24 years and won over 1,400 races. His winnings from his races totaled about 36 million sesterces. In today's terms, that is about US$15 billion. You could put together everything that Tiger Woods, Alex Rodriguez, and Michael Jordan have ever made in their careers... and still be way short of Diocles' total winnings.

kroxquo suggested Michael Schumacher (auto racing). He is the current richest athlete in the world, with a net worth of US$850 million. It's a good (albeit wrong) answer... but fortunately, I didn't predict anybody would say it. Right now, the richest sports personality in the world is wrestling exec Vince McMahon, who is worth about US$1.5 billion. But he's not technically an athlete, so he didn't really count on this question.

smiler is probably wishing he had bet more because he was the only person to get the correct answer. TMITSSS, who didn't have any points to bet this week, was thinking in the right era.

Now, to close out the first week, I still have that bonus pot that I need to hand out. This week's pot ended with 12 points in it. In the "Are You Smarter Than Estonut?" Bonus, all you have to do is finish the week with a higher score (exact ties are no good here) than the Bored's resident evil genius. All players who can do that will receive an equal share of the pot. For any week on which he scores zero or doesn't participate, the pot will be split evenly amongst all players who don't end the week with a zero. However, if he gets or ties the top score of the week, then he wins the entire pot and everybody else gets nothing.

Ten players finished this week above zero, so they will each get 1.2 bonus points.

Week 1 Scores
Bob Juch - 9 + 6 + 16 + 28 + 0 (+ 1.2) = 60.2
ShamelessWeasel - 2 + 11 + 16 + 28 + 0 (+ 1.2) = 58.2
plasticene - 4 + 9 + 8 + 28 + 0 (+ 1.2) = 50.2
smilergrogan - 4 + 11 + 10 + 16 + 1.29 (+ 1.2) = 43.49
kroxquo - 2 + 7 + 0 + 24 + 0 (+ 1.2) = 34.2
jarnon - 1 + 3 + 10 + 12 + 0 (+ 1.2) = 27.2
franktangredi - 4 + 13 + 6 + 4 + 0 (+ 1.2) = 28.2
Bob78164 - 3 + 7 + 0 + 0 + 0 (+ 1.2) = 11.2
MarleysGh0st - 4 + 6 + 0 + 0 + 0 (+ 1.2) = 11.2
Vandal - 4 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (+ 1.2) = 5.2
silverscreenselect - 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (+ 0) = 0
themanintheseersuckersuit - 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (+ 0) = 0

Pastor Fireball wrote:The words "adjusted for inflation" probably should have hinted that it's not a recent sportsperson. Or even a living sportsperson. The correct answer is chariot racing. The man's name was Gaius Appuleius Diocles.

His full name was Gaius Appuleius Diocles Triocles, but the fans often shortened it to Diocles Triocles, or Dickus Tricklus, sometimes Biggus Dickus.

Pastor Fireball wrote:smiler is probably wishing he had bet more because he was the only person to get the correct answer. TMITSSS, who didn't have any points to bet this week, was thinking in the right era.

Honestly, I had no idea and was just making a joke guess!