The Greatest Bet You Ever Won in Greatest Gamble World Have Never Seen: Creation of a Gambler and a Man

As you read these lines, one race takes place. The most beautiful yet vicious beyond recognition, it is without a single rule. The average odds to win are 0.0000005 percent. Only one competitor shall prevail, others will expire. None would consider to participate, let alone gamble or bet on the outcome. Hell no.

Yet again, the race has been held for over 50,000 years with 108 billion editions. We’re not only voluntarily contestants but regular bettors as well. When it comes to race prelude, we’re crazy about it.

No one has ever seen this ultimate competition. We intend to take you there.

Just imagine it for a moment.

The 200 million runners negotiate close to 24 miles of slippery, sticky, and rocky course. That’s few miles short of the marathon race.

The race track has variable width, from tens to hundreds of feet; close to the finish line, it funnels down to approximately 3ft. There are walls, too. Greasy yet gluey, they will result in grinding halt the moment you touch them. Same goes for the ceiling.

There are no rules, regulations, fair play in this race. None.

You’re on your own.

The competition will do whatever it takes to bring you down or use to their own benefit. Pierre de Coubertin would cringe, Affiliate Guard Dog would dedicate the whole subdomain to this challenge only.

The race environment is hostile from the onset in an uncompromisingly terminal manner with only one item on the agenda — to root out the weakest by any means necessary.

It will change appearance to deceive you, alter shape to strand you, modify the surface to entangle you, pour acidic chemicals to dissolve you, send swarms of aggressors to decimate you. eCOGRA would run permanent recruitment ad just to keep the track of grievances happening in this jurisdiction.

Just kidding. There is no jurisdiction here — you have no shelter or support whatsoever.

Your coach won’t be there, no empathy or relief as you compete. Nor will be your fans. As a matter of fact, there are no spectators in this race. No cheers, shouts, or sights to recharge you. If you’d to ask about players’ protection or Certified Fair Gambling, you’d get blink from the race organizer. Only, you couldn’t see it — the race happens in a pitch black dark.

In the end, there is just one spot at the podium.

No second or third place, no rankings whatsoever. No consolation prize; the organizer never heard of honorable mentions. If you’re not the winner there is no life to be lived to fight another day.

You either triumph or perish. You are on the podium or you are literally dead. Quite RTP.

Would you participate in such a race? Would you take your chance, make a bet?

Gambling Attrition

The intriguing part? For you to become and do whatever you do in your life, someone did exactly that.

For you to place d’Alembert at roulette or to build wagering bridge on river in Texas hold’em, for you to call carte at baccarat or to win two grand on crazy spins, someone won in this race.

For you to mingle across splashy casino floor or to flirt with him near the craps table, for you to click online at your favorite casino or to fill betting lines on Super Bowl, for you to go frantic at the horse race track or despair over bad poker decision, for you to get natural in blackjack or plainly faint as lottery jackpot kicks in — somebody survived all odds and won this race.

When it comes to the race itself — gambling hasn’t even begun. Not before six phases with attrition rates way beyond any odds and volatility you’ve ever encountered are to be realized and negotiated.

Out of the 200 million at the start, the first phase will be survived by two million competitors. That’s 1/100. The other spermatozoa won’t survive the acidic fluids inside the vagina or will simply be lost in the flowback (which is exactly like it sounds: a redistribution of fluids upon injection).

The second phase will trim down the number for 50 percent. One million will enter the cervix.

Think that’s outrageous? Please.

The third phase happens in the uterus. Only 10,000 competitors will make it to the top of the organ. The rest are attacked and absorbed by white blood cells, appearing in force as soon as the sperm enters their defensive perimeter. The closest word that comes to mind here is the carnage.

To survive this phase is nothing short of pure chance.

Out of ten thousand to reach the far end of the uterus, only half will remain upon the conclusion of the fourth phase. To prevail in this one, they will have to make a left or right turn — on blind luck.

Unless both woman ovaries have released eggs simultaneously (a rare event), half of the competitors will make the bad decision, ending up in the wrong oviduct.

To be scientifically consistent, the female body does provide for a tinny help here. Hormones produced to stimulate egg growth enter the bloodstream and trigger woman’s muscles to start rhythmically contract upward and slowly move sperm towards the entrance of the Fallopian tube. This occurs only on the side growing an egg. For spermatozoa on the other side, however, it’s a situation close to high-stake baccarat miss — at the wrong place, at the wrong time.)

If they somehow make it to the fifth phase, they’ll have to hit the bullseye at full speed on an unreal steep angle, chased by other competitors and most persistent white cells. Talk about skills.

Four out of five to attempt this maneuver and enter the uterotubal junction — a twisty space that connects the uterus and the oviduct and leads towards the Fallopian tube — won’t make it. Instead, they will get caught in the mucus at the junction. (Remember sticky walls and standstill?)

The Final Roll

At this point, the female body is very selective about the ultimate 1,000 contestants that will make the final push. The entrance to the Fallopian tube is only a few spermatozoa heads wide — that would be your 3ft width of the race track — and acts as a valve, letting only the best in.

To proceed, competitors will have to be in good shape, with the right constitution, to not behave erratically and show composure. Out of one thousand candidates to enter the Fallopian tube and the sixth attrition phase, only one in five will be selected. The rest will remain attached to the oviduct lining or simply give up.

The 200 competitors will make the last dash. One in a million.

To our conventional understanding of any race or gambling for that matter, at this point you would be banged up, tired, shell-shocked, with just a few miles to run. The competitive side of your personality has a plan — gather your strength, overtake guys in the front, regain losses, and win. There’s still time.

Only, that is not what happens next.

As the first spermatozoon crosses the finish line the race is over for everybody. The rest of the sperm are pushed away by an impermeable surface of the fertilized egg.

It’s a sudden death like an overtime goal in NHL. Though, hockey players get to play another game. The remaining 199 competitors in this race end up as fodder for a woman’s immune system.

And you thought we were exaggerating and dramatizing at the beginning, didn’t you?

On the other hand…

If you by some chance win in this race — which is to say you’ve made Road Runner ashamed and Forrest Gump proud, you’re honorable citizen of Atlantic City just for surviving the odds, Las Vegas casino moguls are about to hire you to train their Eye on the Sky stuff, gamblers and iGamers across the world are green with envy, and all the girls want to show you to their dads — you get a chance to…

Give a life. Create a human being. Make a gambler.

You have won the greatest race world have never seen. You overcame odds in the ultimate gamble ever made.

The rest is up to you and her.

(Well, to be truthful, quite more on her than on you. Which is why you should never forget to respect women, among many other reasons to do so.)

Two side notes, before we proceed.

We took 200 million spermatozoa as an average number for this story. A healthy adult male releases between 40 million and 1.2 billion sperm cells in a single ejaculation. Evaluate odds in the context of later.

Also, we choose running as an illustrative sport because it’s a first skill human ever learned in evolution and since the majority of us usually bet on sports in which people run trying to catch something. It seemed fitting. But if you’re into swimming, used as an occasional analogy for this race, by all means, indulge yourself — as you think of aggressors, carnage, and the pitch black dark, visualize white sharks.

The Jackpot

This race is not only the greatest unseen bet — regardless what we might think of our scientific achievements in the 21st century, we still know very little about the journey of sperm — but also something all gamblers experience as they play.

What we seek in our favorite games is not only win but the confirmation — we want to validate we are special.

What we look for in jackpot is not only the money but new life — we want new opportunity to make up for all the others.

It doesn’t matter who we are, how much money we have, what we do for a living. Gender has nothing to do with it. It’s irrelevant whether we’re conservative, professional or compulsive gamblers.

We need to confirm we’re special, need to prove we can create.

Not so much to others but to ourselves, in the most competitive way there is.

This peculiar human trait has been with us throughout history. It has nothing to do with gambling, as old as ourselves.

Games of skill and luck are just the corridor, the medium if you will, for us to utilize this urge in any domain of our existence — careers, relationships, friendships, arts, culture, science, even wars and artificial intelligence.

To be special, to have the power to create a new possibility. This is why we gamble.

That is why we live.

Thus, next time you think about luck, skills, volatility, chances, choices, odds, and bets, bear in mind — they do not apply only to gambling.

Also, next time you take your device for iGaming, know that single sperm contains 37.5MB of DNA. For average 200 million spermatozoa ejaculation, it could be 7,500 Terabytes worth of genetic instructions. On a 1 Mbps connection, it would take 2,042 years to download it.

When you were made, your dad prepared the transfer in less than five seconds. It took your mom between 30 minutes and three days to download the most relevant and best piece of information.

That is the true measure of human capability.

Don’t forget that. Because…

For you to have friends you care for, family you love and belong to, for you to wake up tomorrow and go to the job you love or hate, for you to read the book or watch the eighth season of GoT (your call), for you to even have an option to make your call at all, for you to take care of your parents as they get old knowing one day you’ll be there too, for you to sweep her off her feet or to mesmerize him, for you to watch your son make that shorthanded goal or your daughter walk down the aisle in white…

Someone, somewhere, once, made the largest bet you’ve ever seen and won the greatest race in the world.

You are the jackpot — the single most special being on the planet capable to create whatever you envision.

Use that gift wisely.

Particularly when you gamble.

And as you go home where lovers roam, stake some — you never know what you might win.

[Author’s remark: this editorial is an homage to the unforgettable visionary and statesman.]