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by bradleyjg 1947 days ago
The phrase I’ve heard for this style of bet is “picking up nickels in front of a steamroller.”
1 comments

My mental image of a steamroller is slow, so they're dodgeable. I don't think I've ever seen one in real life, come to think of it, so maybe that's just me.

I would have called it "Russian roulette". High reward, high chance of an unavoidable catastrophic loss.

Yep, that is the point. Usually, there is no problem picking up the nickles. Every once in a while, you trip, bonk your head, pass out, then do your best impression of a sheet of paper.