Basic Trope: Betting ludicrously high, or betting non-cash items, on a gambling game.
- Straight: Alice bets her house on a gambling game, hoping to win its cash value.
- Exaggerated: Humanity plays a game with aliens, and if they lose, the aliens will kill all of humanity.
- Downplayed: Alice bets her phone on a game of cards.
- Justified:
- The venue requires each player to bet at least $50,000.
- Alice is desperate for the money and doesn't have enough time to get it another way.
- Alice is just plain ballsy.
- Inverted: Alice bets a penny on poker.
- Subverted: Alice wants to bet her house on a game, but Bob talks her out of it...
- Double Subverted: ...and then she bets her firstborn on it instead.
- Parodied:
- Alice bets a penny on poker... and then the misers involved in the game all lose their mind that she's betting something so valuable.
- Alice bets all her clothes on poker. And loses.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice initially bets her house on a game, then realizes it's too risky and changes her mind. However, later in the story, when she's in a desperate situation, she ends up reluctantly betting her house again.
- Averted:
- There are no gambling games in the work.
- All bets are normal amounts of cash.
- Enforced: The Moral Guardians want to show the dangers of gambling.
- Lampshaded: "Why would you ever bet your HOUSE on this?"
- Invoked: Alice intentionally sets up a high-stakes gambling game where players are encouraged to bet their most valuable possessions.
- Exploited: Alice’s house is dilapidated and she is unable to sell it. She bets it in a card game and offloads it to some poor bastard.
- Defied:
- No one would ever mistakenly think that Alice is the brightest bulb in the box, but she certainly isn't stupid enough to wager anything she can't live without.
- Having gotten in trouble with the bank and other creditors more times than she cares to remember, Alice learns not to make such huge bets.
- The only things that Alice puts up for grabs anymore are useless trinkets and childhood toys that she was planning to get rid of anyway. Her opponent may or may not observe that Alice seems to be trying to lose.
- The casino refuses to accept the deed to Alice's house as a wager, insisting that all bets must be made with authorized casino chips.
- Discussed: Characters engage in a conversation about the risks and consequences of betting high or non-cash items on a gambling game.
- Conversed: Characters talk about the concept of high-stakes gambling and share their opinions or experiences with it.
- Played for Laughs: Alice bets her house, her car, all her clothes she’s wearing, her neighbor's cat, her life's savings, her soul, her mother, her life savings, the sky, and part of Mars on a game of Tic-Tac-Toe.
- Played for Drama: Alice loses everything she owns from a gambling addiction.
- Implied: The story hints that characters have bet non-cash items or made high-stakes bets, but it is not explicitly shown or discussed.
- Deconstructed: The story explores the negative consequences of betting ludicrously high or non-cash items, showing the devastating effects it can have on characters' lives, relationships, and financial stability.
- Reconstructed: The story deconstructs the trope initially, highlighting its negative aspects, but later finds a way to put it to good use or demonstrate a positive outcome despite the risks involved.
- Played for Horror: Alice makes a bet with supernatural entities, wagering her soul, and is eventually consumed by the consequences of her high-stakes gambling.
Back to [Absurdly High-Stakes Game]
