Predict Tomorrow's National League Wild Card Game

Tomorrow night, the Chicago Cubs will play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League Wild Card game to see who gets to continue on in the MLB playoffs. The game starts at 8pm Eastern Time and you are going to predict the result.

So meet up with some friends to watch the game, or if you don't have friends, which is likely the case, go to a sports bar and sit yourself on a barstool. Start talking to whomever is around you and say, "If I could give you the results of this game before it started, would you give me $20,000?" If they say yes, try and get 20 grand out of them. If they say no, then just be like, "That's what I figured."

Now give that person a sealed envelope that looks like this and tell them it's your National League Wild Card prediction. "You're going to hold onto the prediction for the entire game," you say.

Ask them to hold onto it throughout the game. 

You have two ways to play this. You can play it like a demonstration of magic/precognition. Or during the course of the game you can mention your "prediction" a number of times, but each time say it with a wink. In this case you're going to play it off like you've fixed the National League Wild Card game. If you decide to go this route, then at one point during the game you should make a phone call and let people overhear you. Say something like, "Everyone is on board, right? They got their money? I just want to be sure. There are going to be some very unhappy people if the... prediction doesn't come true."

When the game ends, let out a long sigh of relief and tell your friend to open the prediction. He opens it and pulls out a slip of paper that says, "A fun time will be had by all," or something equally meaningless. Or the envelope can be empty. 

Take the envelope back from the person and say, "Sorry, I didn't trust you, I thought you might open it before the game ended. And I figured you wouldn't trust me either and you'd think I would switch the prediction without you seeing somehow. So I made the prediction online Monday morning. But I wasn't lying when I said you'd hold onto the prediction for the whole game."

Take out a marker and modify the envelope, adding a URL and an underscore, so it now looks like this.

Tell your friend to go online and go to that account and they'll see you accurately predicted not only the outcome of the game, but the final score as well. 

[UPDATE - So this game is now in the past, and I have deleted the method to how exactly we did this. I deleted it because someone informed it was essentially the same as Tube 2.0 by Jason Messina. So, if you're interested in seeing how we predicted the outcome of the game a couple days before it occurred, check out that product.]

When it's done, offer to tell them the winner of the upcoming divisional series for $25,000. Just tell them whoever you want. You'll be right half the time (the other half of the time you'll have to leave town for good). Send me 20% of whatever you can take people for.