I knew there was a better word.
WRT all this talk about Lonnegan confronting Gondorff, IIRC, Gondorff wanted to put Lonnegan in that position. He wanted Lonnegan to know he cheated, he wanted Lonnegan to know that he couldn’t do anything about it, he wanted Lonnegan to be angry at him, he wanted Lonnegan to know he stole his money (Hooker even told him). Now Hooker can walk in to collect the money, pretend like he hates Gondorff just as much and get him to agree to team up with him to fuck over Gondorff.