all bets are off
4
7.6
- idiom
- Informal
:
todas las apuestas están canceladas
- Age will catch up with Boston and the Spurs soon, and when Kobe's gone, all bets are off for the Lakers.
- then all bets are off
- all bets are off goes down
- mean, all bets are off
It's just all bets are off for anyone else in that game.
- It's just all bets are off for anyone else in that game.
- And then of course, all bets are off on the Putin regime more long term.
- If I haven't garnered grabbed your interest by then, all bets are off right?
- So I knew if mom had one drink, I knew that all bets were off for days or weeks.
- Once you really open the door to skepticism, all bets are off.
- But when the sun engulfs the Earth, all bets are off.
- However, if you meet something from another star, all bets are off.
- But when you are poked or baited, it can feel like all bets are off.
- But when the insurance company's paying, all bets are off.
- And you know, again, all bets are off, right?
- Once you degrade the enemy to just being a thing, all bets are off as to what you can do to them.
- I think if Real Madrid score the first goal next week, all bets are off.
Examples
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So I knew if mom had one drink, I knew that all bets were off for days or weeks.
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When that happens, all bets are off.
Blog text (6) -
Then all bets are off even before then, probably.
Blog text (6) -
So legally speaking, all bets are off.
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Of course, if a large swath of the population were to lose the use of their credit cards, all bets are off.
Blog text (6) -
Of course, if we get four superconferences and they all leave the NCAA, all bets are off.
Blog text (32) -
Once the negotiations began to fall apart, all bets were off.
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When the storm hit the area, all bets were off for the outdoor event.
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After the referees made controversial calls, all bets were off for the game's outcome.
Synonyms
9
7.2
A situation that is dangerous or uncertain until the last moment
7
5.4
Has a risk because the result is not certain
Plans often change when they face real problems
Antonyms
How Predictable
Surface Forms
Morphology
While the words 'all', 'bets', and 'off' have clear literal meanings, the idiomatic sense that prior assumptions or agreements no longer apply is a conventionalized figurative meaning rather than a direct composition of the parts. A B1 learner who knows the constituent words would likely interpret this literally (e.g., wagers canceled) and not reliably infer the broader unpredictable/voided-expectations sense.
Etymology
The idiom all bets are off comes from gambling: when a race was cancelled or the conditions changed, the people taking the bets would say the bets were off (not valid). So today we say all bets are off when a situation becomes suddenly 'unpredictable' or earlier plans and promises 'no longer apply'.