betting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of bet.

   She kept betting on the same number all night.

   Betting on the underdog paid off when the team won.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every construction of bet with it, including the double object: betting a friend ten dollars that it will rain. At the card table it keeps the narrower sense of being first to put money in the pot. As a gerund it still takes an object (betting money on horses). That object is what separates it from the noun for the activity, which can take a plural, bettings.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of placing a wager on the outcome of an event.

   Sports betting has grown rapidly over the past decade.

   She gave up betting after losing most of her savings.

   Similargambling, wagering

   Note

   Usually the noun names the activity as a whole and takes no plural, as in sports betting. It can also count individual wagers. Jesse O. McKee's The Choctaw (1989) describes a game prepared with "the bettings all made and goods all 'staked'" before any players arrived. Where a single wager is meant, bet is the everyday word.

3. 3
   adjective

   Of a person, placing bets or taking part in gambling.

   The betting public poured money on the favorite before the race.

   He comes from a betting family that never misses a big match.

   Note

   Its most familiar home is a hedge: "if I were a betting man," followed by a prediction. The speaker claims enough confidence to wager but places no stake, so the phrase softens a forecast rather than describing a gambler. Elsewhere the adjective simply classes people by habit, as in the betting public.

   If I were a betting man, I'd say the vote will be close.

   I'm not a betting man, but I'd put money on rain tomorrow.

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