he has learned about humans and society.  He's disgusted with all of it and intentionally loses the bet with 5 minutes to go. 

The other internal conflict is the conflict raging inside of the banker as the bet nears its conclusion.  The banker is almost completely broke.  Paying the 2 million rubles will wipe him out.  The banker decides to kill the lawyer and frame somebody for the act.  He's wrestling with knowing how wrong that is and knowing that he really wants to keep his money. 

Chekhov makes it clear that by the end of story, both men have been utterly broken by their own internal conflicts.  

The story has four characters: a party guest, a watchman, a lawyer, and a banker. The lawyer and the banker are the two main characters.

At a party, the guests are discussing which is worse: the death penalty or life in prison. One partygoer is given a few lines of dialogue:

"They're both equally immoral," remarked one of the guests, "because their purpose is the same, to take away life. The State is not God. It has no right to take away that which it cannot give back, if it should so desire."

As a result of this discussion, a young lawyer and a banker make a bet that the lawyer can't survive fifteen years in prison. If he does, the banker will give him two million roubles.

The lawyer is imprisoned under good terms—he is in solitary confinement but lives in the banker's house with plenty of food, wine, music, and books. The banker tells him it will be especially hard on him to be imprisoned because it is voluntary and he can leave at anytime.

The lawyer, who begins happy and hopeful, develops a contempt for humankind in his imprisoned state and a contempt for the two million roubles. He leaves his prison five minutes before his time is up, to show his disdain for the money. The banker, who has become increasingly anxious to preserve his funds, is both relieved and filled with self-contempt.

A watchman tells the banker at the end that the lawyer has left early.

The terms of the bet are that the lawyer must live in isolation for fifteen years. At the end of that time, if he fulfills his bet of having no human contact for this period, the banker will pay him two million rubles.

The bet arises out of an argument on which is crueler, the death penalty or life imprisonment. A young lawyer argues that "to live anyhow is better than not at all." A banker contradicts him and bets the lawyer that he would not stay in solitary confinement for five years. The inflamed and boastful lawyer calls his bet, saying if the banker is in earnest, he will live, not five, but fifteen years in isolation. 
During this long period of isolation, the lawyer may have books, musical instruments, any kind of food, wine, letters, and virtually anything else that he wants except human contact. So, at first, the lawyer is content. He reads books that are light in their subject matter, and he plays the piano frequently. In the second year, he becomes vociferous in his private conversations with himself, and he stops playing the piano. Then, in the sixth year, he decides to become an intellectual and studies languages and reads philosophy and history. In the tenth year, he reads only theological texts. Yet, though he has gained wisdom and knowledge, the lawyer finds his knowledge worthless because he has no one with whom to share anything.

Near the end of the term, the banker finds himself much poorer than he was when he made the bet. In his desperation he contemplates murdering the lawyer to avoid paying and being financially ruined. When he looks into the garden house where the lawyer is imprisoned, he finds him asleep. Breaking the seals on the door, the banker discovers a prematurely aged man asleep and the pessimistic letter of the lawyer, who has renounced the bet. After reading this letter, the banker returns to his house.
The next day, the watchman reports that the prisoner is gone; the banker retrieves the letter and hides it in his safe. Ironically, both men feel a contempt for their lives.  

Life imprisonment or capital punishment---that was the discussion that led to “The Bet” by Anton Chekhov. The point of view of the story is third person limited omniscient.  Foreshadowing plays an important part in the story since the narrator looks back fifteen years in the past to recall the establishing of the bet.

Chekhov’s clever writing focuses not on the characters as much as the premise of the story.  He wants the reader to ponder the question of the death penalty and life imprisonment. 

His impetus in the story clearly takes on a deeper level when the reader begins to wonder what he might do if he were in the same situation.  Then, the importance of the story comes to the forefront---isolation or gregariousness. Chekhov makes no decision for the reader.  It is left to the reader to decide the ethical questions.

The two characters in the story represent two aspects of society—the young lawyer and the older banker.  The bet becomes a contest between the two men involved. The initial event is the old banker remembering the reason for the bet which was the moral difference between the two punishments.

The banker argues that the death penalty is better because it was quickly over. The lawyer avows that any life is better than death.

The bet is made:

1. Two million dollars to the winner.
2. Five years confinement---stupidly, the lawyer changes it to fifteen years—of the lawyer.
3. Solitary confinement on the property of the banker. 
4. No human contact during the time.
5. The lawyer would be provided with anything that he needed. Uh oh. It's a stalemate. So the two made a bet—if the lawyer can stand to be in voluntary solitary confinement for fifteen years, the banker will pay him two million smackers. Now that's a lot of dough. 
6. At the end of time at midnight, the lawyer would receive his pay.

The story’s plot circles around the lawyer and the use of his time during his confinement.  It is a detailed look at the human spirit and the need for interaction with other people.  In the end, the lawyer realizes what a mistake the bet was and leaves early negating the bet. 

This saves the banker who had misused his money and would have been bankrupt had he been forced to make the payment. To indicate the power of the bet and its impact on the contestants, the banker enters the lawyer’s room with the intention of killing him.  The lawyer is sleeping and the banker reads a note that is left on the desk.  

The notes states that the lawyer has experienced life through books.

 "To prove to you in action how I despise all that you live by, I renounce the two million of which I once dreamed as of paradise and which now I despise. To deprive myself of the right to the money I shall go out from here five hours before the time fixed, and so break the compact ..."

The lawyer has decided that the materialism is worthless and all that is left is to die. The banker has been saved from financial ruin.

In "The Bet," one of the literary techniques used by Anton Chekhov is symbolism. The two million rubles, for example, function as a symbol of the lawyer's ambition: he wants to prove his assertion that it is better to have some life than to have no life at all.  In addition, by employing the two million rubles as a symbol, Chekhov encourages the reader to think critically about the value of human life. Specifically, he asks us if life is indeed worth two million rubles or if it is too precious to have a financial value.

Secondly, Chekhov narrates the story from the point of view of the banker. This is significant because the reader understands the bet in the context of the banker's experience: it is his financial worries, for example, which drive the plot to its climax as he becomes intent on murdering the lawyer. Conversely, seeing events from the banker's point of view adds to the lawyer's sense of isolation as he spends fifteen years locked away in his cell.

For more information, please see the reference link provided.

The exposition of the story is when the banker and the lawyer get into an argument over capital punishment.  The banker condones it, while the lawyer prefers life in prison.

This leads to the inciting incident, or the bet itself.  The banker wages 2 million rubles against 15 years of the lawyer's life in his garden house, a simulation of life in prison.

The rising action deals with the lawyer's years in prison.  The lawyer reads, plays piano, drinks.  It also includes the banker's decision to kill the lawyer a day before the bet is over, to blame the murder on the the watchman.

The climax comes on the day before the fifteen years is up, and as the banker intends to kill the lawyer, he sees him asleep with a letter at his table.  The letter says that the lawyer renounces humanity and intends to leave the garden house minutes before the bet is over.  This is also the anti-climax, as the banker refuses to murder the lawyer and no one wins the bet.

The falling action shows the lawyer indeed leaving minutes before he cashes in on the two million rubles.

The resolution has the banker putting the letter in a safe.  Does he do this to prevent himself for being implicated in a crime (reneging on the bet)?  Or, does he value the letter more dearly than money?  In other words, does the bet teach both the banker and the lawyer to renounce vanity and materialism, to value human relationships?

The phrase "literary elements" seems to be rather vague and all-encompassing. You might benefit from re-reading the story and trying to narrow down your terms of reference somewhat, as clearly every work of fiction has a number of "literary elements" that could be commented upon. One way to approach this question, however, would be to talk about the difference between the two central characters, the lawyer and the banker, and the way that these characters are shown to develop and evolve through the experiences narrated in the story.

Let us begin by considering the lawyer. Having made such an impetuous bet, the lawyer, by the end of the story, is shown to have developed and matured immeasurably. His final note, which renounces the money he was due to win, gives ample evidence of the way that he has transcended so many of the earthly problems and issues that still dog the banker:

You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth and hideousness for beauty.

Clearly such statements indicate the extent of the lawyer's development. By contrast, although the banker is moved to tears by reading the lawyer's note, he still contradicts such an action by the way that he carefully places the lawyer's letter in his safe. In contrast to the lawyer, the banker is clearly shown not to have evolved beyond his greed and self-interest.

Thus one literary element you could helpfully focus on is that of characterisation and the way that it is used to compare and contrast these two central characters.

The bet between the lawyer and the banker is a relatively simple bet.  It takes a long time to complete, but the set up itself is straight forward.  The banker believes that capital punishment is better, and the lawyer believes time in prison is more humane.  The two men make a bet.  If the lawyer can tolerate 15 years in solitary confinement, then the banker will pay him 2 million rubles.  

Most of the story is told from the banker's perspective, so the reader gets a good insight into his conflict.  The lawyer's conflict is a bit harder to pin down.  Of the plot types that teachers emphasize, the lawyer is experiencing a man vs. self conflict.  He is in his prison all by himself.  He is well provided for with food, drink, books, and music, but he has almost zero contact with humans of any kind.  He is not in danger from any outside force or person, so man vs. man and man vs. nature do not apply.  The lawyer's struggle is within his own mind. Can he remain sane and positive during the 15 years?  I would argue that he failed.  He comes out despising just about everything in human life, and he no longer wants the money.  Perhaps that is a victory, but I see him as a broken man.  

“The Bet” by Anton Chekhov begins at a party given by a wealthy banker.  The men at the party discuss the pros and cons of capital punishment.  The argument concerns the difference between living a life in prison versus execution.

One of the discussion participants was a young lawyer.  He adamantly opposes the death penalty with the argument that any life is better than no life. On the other hand, the banker supports the death penalty:

“I don't agree with you," said their host, the banker. "I have not tried either the death penalty or imprisonment for life, but if one may judge a priori, the death penalty is more moral and more humane than imprisonment for life. Capital punishment kills a man at once, but lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly…”

Carried away by the excitement of the discussion, the banker offers two million dollars if the young lawyer stays five years in solitary confinement.  The lawyer consents to the bet but strangely states that he will stay fifteen years rather than five. 

Both of the men make foolish bets that day to prove an idea that really did not answer the basic argument.  At any rate, the two men agree on certain criteria concerning the bet:

The man would not cross threshold of the house for fifteen years.  If he went two minutes before the time, he would lose the bet. 

• He could not receive letters or read newspapers.
• He could not speak to anyone.
• He could have wine and smoke. 
• His only relationship with the outside world was a little window for him to see ouside world. 
• He could have anything he wanted and in any quantity he desired but only through the window. 
• His imprisonment lasted from twelve o’clock on November 14, 1870 to twelve o’clock of November 14, 1885. 

The lawyer passed his time in various ways.  Studying, reading, writing---however, his bitterness

over the bet caught up with him.  At the end of the long fifteen years, he left a note for the banker telling him that he no longer wanted the money and would be leaving the lodge a few hours early to preclude the winning of the bet.

The banker learned of this through a devious manner.   His intention was to  sneak into the lodge to kill the lawyer because if the banker had foolishly wasted his money through the years.  To pay the bet would have ruined him. 

Both men suffered from the bet;  and, in the end,  there was no winner. 

One chief literary element that is used by Chekhov in this excellent and profound short story is comparison of the banker's emotions with his actions, and how the discrepancy between the two reveals the banker's materialism and lack of willingness to change and learn from his experience. Note how, after reading the note that the man who agreed to live in solitary confinement for fifteen years, the banker is affected very strongly:

When the banker had read this he laid the page on the table, kissed the strange man on the head, and went out of the lodge, weeping. At no other time, even when he had lost heavily on the Stock Exchange, had he felt so great a contempt for himself. When he got home he lay on his bed, but his tears and emotion kept him for hours from sleeping.

This rather extreme emotional reaction suggests the banker has learnt an important lesson about himself and his attachment to material possessions, which of course the man who wrote the note has just ultimately rejected with his intention to default on the terms of the bet. The use of the word "contempt" is very strong and likewise implies the banker has been forced to take a long, hard look at himself, and his sleepless night suggests that he is thinking of how he will change as a result. However, after the man has defaulted on the terms of the bet, the very next paragraph "locked [the letter] up in a fireproof safe" to make sure that he has the rejection of the money recorded and safe. This action, juxtaposed to his earlier emotional response, reveals a central discrepancy in the banker's character. Although he was certainly struck by the man's rejection of material possessions, he has not acted on that in any way, as he only acts to preserve his belongings and wealth. Juxtaposition is therefore a key literary technique that is used to expose the true attitudes and feelings of the banker and reveal one of the central themes of this story.

In this story, a bet is made between a banker and a lawyer after a lively discussion about prison and the death penalty. Initially, the banker bets the lawyer two million that he could not stay in solitary confinement for a period of five years. In response, the lawyer claims that not only would he be able to stay for five years, he would actually last for fifteen years. Believing that this would be impossible, the banker accepts this bet and stakes his two million.

This "wild" and "senseless" bet is now agreed between the two men. The banker does not believe that the lawyer will win. On the other hand, the lawyer is confident that it is better to have some kind of life than no life at all.

Thus, the arrangements are now made for the lawyer to live in solitary confinement within the grounds of the banker's home, setting the scene for the rest of the story.

"The Bet" by Anton Chekhov begins at a dinner party held by a banker. The conversation turns to capital punishment, and the guests discuss whether capital punishment or life imprisonment would be worse. The lawyer says that he'd rather be in prison because at least he would still be alive, and that some life is better than none at all. He then makes a bet with the banker that he can stay imprisoned for the next fifteen years. The banker then bets the lawyer two million dollars that he cannot do it. The lawyer takes him up on his bet and for the next fifteen years (minus one hour) stays in a cell where the banker can keep an eye on him. In the end, the lawyer forfeits the two million dollars because money no longer has the same meaning for him it once had.