Can You Guys Teach Me To Be A Bookie?

[Quercus]

@Chronos

Ultimately, I’m sure there are a handful of very well-paid folks in Vegas who use a combination of heavy statistical models like what you see from Nate Silver, and intuitions that were extraordinarily good to begin with and trained by decades of experience.

This is how they start – though again, Vegas isn’t trying necessarily to figure out what the real odds are, but rather what odds will get equal bets on each side – but if lots of bets start coming in on one side, Vegas will adjust the odds to try and balance things.

The problem with doing that as a bookie in, say, Philadelphia, is that your local clientele isn’t betting the same as the nation as a whole. So if you give Vegas odds on the 76ers-Celtics, you’re going to end up with a lot more money bet on the 76ers. And if you give much shorter odds on the 76ers to try and balance things, your local clientele will probably not be pleased. So you need someone who can balance out all your bets on the 76ers with bets on the Celtics, either a national organization with deep pockets, or at least a way of getting in touch with some local bookies in Boston who have the opposite problem.

[zoid]

From what I’ve heard (;)) htere’s always enough people willing to bet against the home team if the odds are in their favor. About the only time this changes is during playoffs or a close playoff run. In those cases you just don’t make book on that game. You may piss off the folks who make 2 bets a year but real betters will still bet other games.
Also if you live in a fairly densely populated area you’re not going to be the only act in town. It’s a good idea to be friendly with the other guys. You can work together to avoid things like cross bets which are very bad for both of you and you can sometimes take each others action if say I’m overloaded on the home team and you’re overloaded on the visitor.

[notfrommensa]

@Rhythmdvl

Let’s not forget the important items.

You’ll need a nickname. Something classy, yet with a hint of seediness.

You’ll also want to pick up some sort of accent. What kind of accent depends on the clientele and nature of bets you’re looking to attract.

A hat. Gotta have a hat. Do you have a hat yet? Gotta have one.

You also want to make sure you have proper travel papers. If possible, you’ll want to arrange for a visa to Cuba (or whatever paperwork is necessary), because you’ll eventually want to jet down there with someone you meet (perhaps at a Salvation Army mission) for an evening.

Consider what prop you’ll be most comfortable with. A constant toothpick? A cigar? A cane? Something that will fit your overall style and give you something to fiddle with during conversations.

Jowls are important, but take a long time to develop. Start working on them as soon as possible.

I’m sure there are more, but this is all I have at the moment.

Since the OP’s moniker is Covered_In_Bees!, I think he might have a lot of these attributes covered.

[Stanislaus]

My maternal grandfather ran a small scale illegal bookmaking operation in the west of Scotland sometime in the 60s. He died before I was born but from what I’ve heard, what you really, really need in this situation isn’t muscle, or arithmetical acumen, or even access to large amounts of cash/credit. Like other customer facing businesses, you need to be able to meet the needs of your core customer base - the ones who are responsible for the bulk of your revenue and profit.

You need to be able to take money, week after week, from people who can’t afford to lose it. And by “can’t afford to lose it” I mean “will not now be buying their children food”. Payday is the big day: the goal is to keep your clientele in there until all their money is gone. The good news is that they will need very little encouragement to do so. The better news is that you won’t have to accompany them home to explain why there’s going to be another cashflow issue this week.

Addiction, poor impulse control - call it what you want, but the core business plan of any bookie is to profit from the bad decisions of others.

[Little_Nemo]

@Stanislaus

Addiction, poor impulse control - call it what you want, but the core business plan of any bookie is to profit from the bad decisions of others.

The complimentary heroin bar was a nice touch.

[Stanislaus]

Oh, they come for the gambling - but they stay for the narcotics.

[Gray_Ghost]

@Stanislaus

…[W]hat you really, really need in this situation isn’t muscle, or arithmetical acumen, or even access to large amounts of cash/credit. Like other customer facing businesses, you need to be able to meet the needs of your core customer base - the ones who are responsible for the bulk of your revenue and profit.

You need to be able to take money, week after week, from people who can’t afford to lose it. And by “can’t afford to lose it” I mean “will not now be buying their children food”. Payday is the big day: the goal is to keep your clientele in there until all their money is gone. The good news is that they will need very little encouragement to do so. The better news is that you won’t have to accompany them home to explain why there’s going to be another cashflow issue this week…

In addition to the above, being a successful bookmaker, or any professional gambler for that matter, evidently is an all-consuming endeavor. The notable bookmaker Sonny Reizner wrote a letter of apology to his children for the time he didn’t spend with them:

In a Christmas letter to his four children published in the book, Reizner wrote: “For more years than I care to remember, I worked seven days a week, 365 days a year. … Was I a degenerate gambler? Maybe. … Even though I was oft times neglectful, seemingly distant, and sometimes even unaware, my thoughts were always with you and for you.”

“Every holiday, dad would read that letter to us and he would cry half way through it,” said Jann Reizner, a retired Las Vegas schoolteacher. “It was a poignant letter of apology and the epitome of what it was like to live with a professional gambler. But he realized it in time and in the end, he was there to talk to, to give advice – just to be there for us.”

The professional gambler Barry Greenstein has a similar dedication to the children of gamblers in his book, Ace on the River:

“They were rarely promised anything, because the promise might have been too hard to keep. They may have wanted to play a game with their parent rather than watch a sporting event on which their parent had placed a bet. They were told everything was done so they could have toys and clothes and a nice place to live, but all they wanted was a little more of their parent’s time. I apologize to my children…for when I have failed as a parent.”

From reading the bios of old-time bookmakers, it seems it’s a apprenticeship-guild type thing. IOW, to learn to be a successful bookmaker, one goes and studies at the feet of an established one. I really want to read Chad Millman’s book, The Odds: One Season, Three Gamblers, and the Death of Their Las Vegas, in which one of the three gamblers is an established bookmaker. I imagine the book would help answer some of the OP’s questions.

Bill Barnwell has a few articles at Grantland detailing a neophyte’s introduction to the world of NFL sports betting that you might find interesting. In them are tidbits about how lines are generated and why and how much lines move. You might have to go get Google’s cache of some of his articles, like the Viva Las Vegas/Sabermetrics in the Wasteland one.

[kayaker]

The only “factual” information I can offer is from a friend who “takes bets”. He started out as a runner for someone selling numbers and worked his way up.

[Chronos]

The problem with doing that as a bookie in, say, Philadelphia, is that your local clientele isn’t betting the same as the nation as a whole. So if you give Vegas odds on the 76ers-Celtics, you’re going to end up with a lot more money bet on the 76ers. And if you give much shorter odds on the 76ers to try and balance things, your local clientele will probably not be pleased. So you need someone who can balance out all your bets on the 76ers with bets on the Celtics, either a national organization with deep pockets, or at least a way of getting in touch with some local bookies in Boston who have the opposite problem.

The other problem with deviating too far from the Vegas line is that nowadays, everything is interconnected. If you deviate too far, then someone in Kalamazoo or whatever can buy you out completely, and buy out the same amount on the other side, and be guaranteed a profit. Suddenly, you (and probably the other bookie, too) are the guy making the sucker bet. That’ll ruin you just as surely as the big beefy guys with pinstripe suits and violin cases.

[Turble]

If you don’t have some customers who don’t pay up, you aren’t issuing enough credit and are missing out on a lot of potential profit. If you have a big enough customer database and the business calculus skills to use it, you can calculate your own best scenario – otherwise, try aiming for about a 2% default rate. Creative forms of pressure on deadbeats can encourage many marginal players to keep their accounts up to date.

You goal is not to financially destroy your clients but to hurt them; destroyed customers don’t come back. You don’t want their kids to go hungry – you want them to put off buying a new car and to keep the dream alive that the next parlay will be the one that lets them pay cash for their new car.

[Little_Nemo]

@Chronos

The other problem with deviating too far from the Vegas line is that nowadays, everything is interconnected. If you deviate too far, then someone in Kalamazoo or whatever can buy you out completely, and buy out the same amount on the other side, and be guaranteed a profit. Suddenly, you (and probably the other bookie, too) are the guy making the sucker bet. That’ll ruin you just as surely as the big beefy guys with pinstripe suits and violin cases.

I think that’s why bookies usually operate as part of a nation-wide system. This allows them to sell off any excess bets. If a Philadelphia bookie gets too many bets placed on the 76ers because they’re the hometown favorite, he sells some of those bets to a Boston bookie who has too many Celtics bets. Ideally, both bookies end up with a 50/50 mix of bets.

[Least_Original_User_Name_Ever]

@Little_Nemo

I think that’s why bookies usually operate as part of a nation-wide system. This allows them to sell off any excess bets. If a Philadelphia bookie gets too many bets placed on the 76ers because they’re the hometown favorite, he sells some of those bets to a Boston bookie who has too many Celtics bets. Ideally, both bookies end up with a 50/50 mix of bets.

Diversify your bet portfolio.

[Irishman]

So how does that work? Does the house get a percentage off each bet, or something?

[zoid]

Juice or Vig.
In essence it’s a 10% loser tax. If you bet $100 and win, you get $100. If you bet $100 and lose you owe $110.

[Little_Nemo]

@Irishman

So how does that work? Does the house get a percentage off each bet, or something?

I’m not a bookie but my understanding is it works something like this.

To simplify things, let’s say all bets have to be $100. If you pick the winning team, you get $190.

Now let’s say I’m a bookie here in western NY. And let’s say this week’s big game is between the Seahawks and the Broncos. I get 2000 people to place bets so I collect $200,000. And this week, 1000 people are betting on each team. So if Seattle wins I pay out $190,000 to the 1000 people who picked Seattle and if Denver wins I pay out $190,000 to the 1000 people who picked Denver. Either way, I pocket $10,000.

Now it’s next week and the Bills are playing the Texans. I once again get 2000 people placing bets and collect $200,000. But this week, I had 1600 people betting on Buffalo and only 400 people betting on Houston. Great news if Houston wins because I only have to pay out $76,000. But if Buffalo wins, I’ll be paying out $304,000. Not a good situation for me.

So I call up my old friend Irishman, who’s a bookie in Texas. We commiserate and he tells me he’s in the same situation only he has 400 people betting on Buffalo and 1600 people betting on Houston. So I say, “Hey, here’s what I’ll do. You know those 1600 Bills bets I got for $100 apiece? I’ll pay you $95 apiece to take 1200 of them.” And you agree.

So I pay you $114,000 to take 1200 of the Buffalo bets. I now have $86,000 left from my original $200,000 and I have 400 Buffalo bets and 400 Houston bets. If the Bills win I pay out $76000 to 400 people and if Houston wins I pay $76000 to the other 400 people. Either way I still make my $10,000.

Meanwhile, you’ve now got $314,000 (the original $200,000 you got from your local betters plus the $114,000 I paid you). And you’ve now got 1600 Buffalo bets (your original 400 plus the 1200 I sold you) and 1600 Houston bets. If Buffalo wins you’ll pay out $304,000 to the Buffalo betters and if Houston wins you’ll pay out $304,000 to the Houston betters. And like me, you pocket $10,000 either way.

[GreenHell]

Get a good criminal defense attorney. This stuff about “ending up in jail” is a bit alarmist or an indication of lackluster council. I used to deal to a bookie in a weekly poker tournament. Once he came in and lamented getting busted. . . or was that his Houston poker room? Anyway, same difference. When people commented on how terrible this was, he just laughed it off. “You know how it is. You get arrested, charged with felony organized crime, plead down to a misdemeanor and pay a fine. You’re free, lawyers all around get their fees, state gets its piece of the action. Its built into the business model as a cost of doing business. Life goes on.”

[zoid]

@GreenHell

Get a good criminal defense attorney. This stuff about “ending up in jail” is a bit alarmist or an indication of lackluster council. I used to deal to a bookie in a weekly poker tournament. Once he came in and lamented getting busted. . . or was that his Houston poker room? Anyway, same difference. When people commented on how terrible this was, he just laughed it off. “You know how it is. You get arrested, charged with felony organized crime, plead down to a misdemeanor and pay a fine. You’re free, lawyers all around get their fees, state gets its piece of the action. Its built into the business model as a cost of doing business. Life goes on.”

I personally know 2 people who did 3 and 5 years respectively.
It’s not a joke.

[Tom_Tildrum]

@GreenHell

Get a good criminal defense attorney. This stuff about “ending up in jail” is a bit alarmist or an indication of lackluster council. I used to deal to a bookie in a weekly poker tournament. Once he came in and lamented getting busted. . . or was that his Houston poker room?

“If you’re ever in Houston,
Well, you better do right;
You better not gamble,
And you better not fight.”

– The Midnight Special

[Idle_Thoughts]

All right, this thread initially started out joking, but it seems to fast becoming less than that. Please remember that it’s against the rules to discuss actual ways to get around the law and discuss illegal activity.

[Covered_In_Bees]

Leave it to the degenerates to defile my prospective new profession with gambling. Well I never!