punt vs side bet

punt

noun
  • A bet or wager. 

  • A pontoon; a narrow shallow boat propelled by a pole. 

  • A kick made by a player who drops the ball and kicks it before it hits the ground. 

  • Gambling, as a pastime, especially betting on horseraces or the dogs. E.g anyone up for a punt on Randwick? 

  • A highly speculative investment or other commitment. 

  • A wild guess. 

  • A thin glass rod which is temporarily attached to a larger piece in order to better manipulate the larger piece. 

  • The act of playing at basset, baccara, faro, etc. 

  • An indentation in the base of a wine bottle. 

  • A point in the game of faro. 

  • The Irish pound, used as the unit of currency of Ireland until it was replaced by the euro in 2002. 

verb
  • To propel a punt or similar craft by means of a pole. 

  • To kick a bouncing ball far and high. 

  • To retreat from one's objective; to abandon an effort one still notionally supports. 

  • To equivocate and delay or put off (answering a question, addressing an issue, etc). 

  • To make the best choice from a set of non-ideal alternatives. 

  • To stake against the bank, to back a horse, to gamble or take a chance more generally 

  • To make a highly speculative investment or other commitment, or take a wild guess. 

  • To dropkick; to kick something a considerable distance. 

  • Of a fish, to walk along the seafloor using its fins as limbs. 

  • To kick a ball dropped from the hands before it hits the ground. (This puts the ball farther from the goal across which the opposing team is attempting to score, so improves the chances of the team punting.) 

  • To play at basset, baccara, faro, etc. 

  • To eject; to kick out of a place. 

side bet

noun
  • A bet on some aspect of a game or competition that is not the main bet of the game or the prize of the competition; proposition bet. 

  • An investment of time, money, or resources that reinforces one's commitment to a course of action. 

  • An investment or risk undertaken by a company that is not part of its core business. 

How often have the words punt and side bet occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )