This article is classified "Partly real, partly fictional"
Desmond Morrison's "The Ape with the Receding Hairline" has the following to say on the subject of primitive gambling: There are many games played by the gambling species of the galaxy which do not involve the transfer of money. The simplest of this is "Dare" or "Challenge". The rules are simple: one person asks another to do something dangerous, embarrassing, or simply hard. The payoff is that if the person asked fails to rise to the challenge then he loses prestige amongst his (or her) peers. If the challenged person succeeds in completing the challenge his importance in his social group is raised and the challenger's lowered. Of course if the challenged person fails in his task then the punishment may be minor, such as a bit of apologetic grovelling, or a service such as fetching the next round of drinks. More painful conclusions of dares may involve a night in jail or a week in hospital. The gooli tribesmen of the qualgmyr continent dare each other in disputes over adulterous wives. If the challenged adulterous tribesman succeeds in completing the challenge he gets to keep the mate for himself, but the forfeit for loosing involves loosing bodily parts which I am sure you don't want me to detail. The correct response to most challenges is to run away. Less dangerous dares include one by Jeff Kramer (lthumper@bga.com) on the usenet newsgroup alt.galactic-guide in September of 1994. He challenged everyone on the group to write a Project Galactic Guide article each and every day of September. The correct response to this is to lurk - a word which means to read usenet without posting to it - but this foolish Field Researcher decided to take up the challenge. Today is Day Two.