I just watched the 1973 Paul Newman/Robert Redford movie The Sting and am hoping someone out there can give me a step by step explanation of the con they pulled in the movie. More specifically, I’d like some historical background on how wire services were involved with reporting race results. The movie left me with the impression that the results came over the telegraph to the Western Union office, and were forwarded over the wire from there to betting establishments in the city, where they were then read from the ticker tape. However, I wasn’t clear on this point. Perhaps the results came over the wire and were sent to radio news services, which then broadcast them. The fact that everything in the movie is a fake doesn’t make it any easier for me to deduce what normal (ie non-grifter orchestrated) procedure would have been. Please set me straight on just what the technology was, how it worked, and particularly how it worked in relation to horse betting.
Your first scenario was the correct one Welkin. The racing results would be telegraphed to a central office, from where they would be distributed to smaller locations such as betting shops. The sting was that the grifters managed to get a delay of several minutes between when the results came into the betting shop and when they were actually read out, leaving them enough tim to arrange for the correct bets to be placed. This is why Whatshisname always had to be very close to the betting shop when he got his tips. he was actually under the impression that somebody as Western Union was holding up the results, when in fact it was Newman and Redford doing so.
This is a classic film and has a great ending but is quite confusing as you said. As far as I could tell the fake betting office was set up and the person they were trying to sting was made to think that the commentry, odds and results were live where in actual fact they were a bit behind.
I’m am also a little confused as to how this gave the con men an advantage, perhaps someone else would care to explain.
The conmen’s advantage was that they knew the entire setup was fake. They were trying to convince Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) that the betting agency had existed for sometime, and that Hooker (Robert Redford) had an inside with a guy at Western Union.
All the races that JJ Singleton (Ray Walston) were announcing were delayed (remember JJ going over the tape to find a good race to announce?). If Lonnegan had been able to go to another betting agency and compare, he would have discovered the difference.
The ticker tape that Singleton was using was the method that news agencies used to employ to get race results. They were all at least an hour or two old.
Details aside, this con is an example of the ‘Big Store’ con. There are many, many different types of ‘big store’ con - what they have in common is a long setup, an expensive setpiece (the ‘store’), usually lots of bit players, and a big, big payoff (it has to be, to pay for building the store and paying all the bit players). The ‘Big Store’ is one type of ‘long con’. A ‘short con’ is one which plays out in a few minutes or less. A ‘long con’ is one which is set up and can take days, weeks, or months to reach a payoff.
There’s a great book called “Gambling Scams” by Darwin Ortega which goes into the history of all these various cons and describes some of the more notorious ones. It’s a great read. Another great writer for information about this stuff is Dustin D. Marks (a pseudonym - get it? Dusting the Marks).
Yes, the delay in making the results public was a key issue.
Lonnegan (sp?) was told about it by Redford, who claimed that the wire shop was putting in the delay so the operators could manipulate the odds shown to the straight bettors, and ensure a profit. (He supposedly was being shortchanged by his partners.) He said he wanted to use Lonnegan to get revenge by getting results directly from his friend at Western Union and winning a large bet, financed by Lonnegan. Then the fake raid lets the conmen disappear with the money Lonnegan just put down.
So the bait was Lonnegan’s supposed chance to get ahead of the supposedly crooked wire shop by using the even more crooked W.U./Redford information leak. But Redford and his partners topped even that level of crookedness.
The most honest person in the movie was the city cop who was extorting payoffs from Redford early on.
I love the con!
Bob the Random Expert
“If we don’t have the answer, we’ll make one up.”
The hands-down best book on the subject is David (“Doc”) Maurer’s 1940 study of con man culture, The Big Con. It has been reprinted in paperback by Anchor Books. It is, in fact, the book on which The Sting is based.
Maurer was a linguist, and became fascinated with underworld argot. The Big Con is chock full of great slang and con men with handles like “Slobbering Bob,” “The High-Ass Kid” and “Limehouse Chappie.”
It explains in step-by-step detail how the Big Store works, but also many short cons, like “the wipe,” “the spud,” “the smack” and “the slide.”
So if you’ve got a lop-eared mark, tip me the office, and we’ll play the rag. If he beefs, we’ll blow him off with the cackle-bladder.
Anyone here remember reading the MAD Magazine parody of this film, “The Zing”? The punchline in the last panel had Newman telling the gang, “Well, we got Lonnegan for $100,000, but it cost us $250,000 for the setup, so we’re out $150,000!”
Everytime I see this film, I still can’t figure out how they turned a profit. Do con men often work for gratis?
In fact, I read somewhere that there was a bit of a lawsuit involved, because Maurer was neither credited nor compensated.
Guy Propski wrote:
This isn’t explained in the film, but the big store isn’t used once for one guy, it’s used by multiple teams of con men who pay the house a percentage of the grift.
In “The Sting” only Robert Redford’s character worked for free. Everybody else was going to meet later to get their share, which was doled out depending upon the person’s importance. Presumably, the main players (Ray Walston, Harold Gould, Dana Elcar, Paul Newman) got a bigger cut.
Johnny–yeah, whatever. My point was, the con Newman and Redford were pulling cost boucoup bucks. They rented space, equipment, outfits, etc. Then they had a team of grifters hanging around, all expecting a percentage of the take.
Revenue - expenses /sharholders = precious little money, if any.
I guess we were to assume that the soft-hearted grifters did this because they felt bad about Luther. Which is possible, I suppose. Okay, so I missed the point!
I HAVE that copy of “MAD” ( I collected them in the 1970’s, when it was easy to find 1960-era copies at yard sales. Your quote is on the money- it’s a terrific spoof ( as they all were).
Cartooniverse
If you want to kiss the sky, you’d better learn how to kneel.
The clothing and equipment gets reused, the real estate isn’t that much overhead. I’m giving you the square dincum here, there’s a big margin in this stuff. Nobody’s losing their shirts just for the fun of pulling this scam. This stuff really happens, and has been really happening since the turn of the century, and not because motherfuckers like to get broke.
In an age when movies cost a dime, beer cost a nickle a pint, and the monthly salary was around $50.00 it is easy to see how they turned wa HUGE profit. A total WAG, but a take of $100,000 in 1925 would have the pruchasing power of about $10,000,000 in 2000. Even after paying a months rent on the front, paying for all of the clothes and what not, the whole set-up couldn’t have cost more than a few thousand dollars, easily the take won by Paul Newman from Robert Shaw in the doubly-crooked poker game.
JohnnyAngel–Hey, I believe ya, it really does happen. I’m just talking about the con within the structure of the movie. Remember the scene when Kid Twist is checking out the joint? The old guy is quoting him prices for rental, and they were some big numbers for 1930 (remember the guys response when he finds out who the con is? “Flat rate!”). Plus Twist rented the apartment on the corner for a month, etc. etc.
Anyway, this arguement could go on ad infinitem, so I surrender.
Another point: Lonnegan is taken for a HALF MILLION, not $100,000. (MAD magazine juggled the numbers in order to make a joke…why am I not surprised?) So there would have been plenty of gravy for everyone, from Gondorff (Newman) on down to the cigarette girls.
The rentals were no big deal. The Big Store itself was a basement room, with an entrance from the alley. Lonnegan thinks “Ah, what nice camoflauge for an illegal betting parlor,” and the rent comes cheap.
The main stuff they got from he “Flat rate!” guy, but things like the rental of the decorations, th blackboards, the big plants, etc…I assume they went to the old technique of Not Paying the Bills. They’re con men, remember?
The thing that always really bugged me about this movie was the ragtime music score, when the events take place in 1936. A little like making a film about Woodstock and putting Glenn Miller on the soundtrack.
No matter what you think of the finances, the fact is that the Big Store con was held time and time again for years (and may still be going on now). Con men don’t do that sort of thing if they’re not making money.
The key in real life was to find a rich enough mark. In addition, you often had multiple cons running, and made sure the mark was hustled out of town as soon as you fleeced him. (You avoided conning a local; it was nearly always someone who lived out of town.)
Maurer’s book is a fascinating description of all this. The con in THE STING follows his description practically to the letter.
“What we have here is failure to communicate.” – Strother Martin, anticipating the Internet.
