Bookie

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

“Bookie - A pickpocket who lets you use your own hands.”

—Henry Morgan

The irreplaceable linchpin around which gambling -- either legal or illegal -- rotates, the Bookie (short for "Bookmaker") is the guy who sets the odds, takes the bets, and pays the winners, all while keeping a cut for himself. He's the best friend of the Professional Gambler and the enabler for the Gambling Addict. In many countries, Bookies focus on accepting bets on professional sports, especially horse racing and association football (soccer). However, a wider range of bets, including on political elections, awards ceremonies such as the Oscars, and novelty bets are accepted by bookmakers in more and more countries.

A good, honest bookie makes sure his odds and bets are balanced, and that there's always enough in the pot to pay both the winners and the house; a crooked bookie jiggers the numbers to maximize his cut, and may even try to rig the events on which his "customers" are betting. Where gambling is illegal, or only legal for a few things, the Bookie is often affiliated with -- or actually part of -- The Mafia or a similar criminal organization. Such a bookie will often also function as a Loan Shark (or at least in association with one), extending credit to bettors on a losing streak until they are Trapped by Gambling Debts, then dispatching legbreakers to collect. (Or worse, Blackmailing them into doing "a favor" or two.)

In places like racetracks and The Casino, the Bookie is often a group, or even a computer, following a strict, formalized set of rules. In most fiction, though, the Bookie is more likely to be a seedy, fast-talking guy in a checkered jacket with scraps of paper coming out of his pockets, giving odds on anything right off the top of his head -- and sometimes trying to dodge bettors to whom he owes a payout. He can usually be found in his "office" at one end of a bar or on a particular street corner. When he has an actual office, his desk is usually covered with phones, at least in the pre-cell phone era; otherwise his mobile is always pressed to his ear. He frequently doubles as a Knowledge Broker, and occasionally as The Fixer. When he doesn't, he Knows a Guy Who Knows a Guy who does. It's also not uncommon in comedic works for a bookie to almost compulsively offer odds on anything, even if he's in no position to take bets at the time.

The High School Hustler is often a small-time bookie handling bets on school sports and other local events; he sometimes grows up to be the Bookie.

For a lot more detail on what a real bookie actually does and how, see the "Bookmaker" article at The Other Wiki. A guide to bookie lingo and slang can be found at Gentleman's Journal here.

Examples of Bookies include:

Anime and Manga

  • Nabiki Tendo from Ranma ½ makes book on Ranma's fights, setting odds and taking bets. We first see her doing this, with the aid of her two factors, during Ranma's first fight with Ryoga. Nabiki's not entirely an honest bookie; she's not above trying to influence a fight to improve her profit margin.
  • In the novel of Durarara!!, Orihara Izaya was the bookie for his middle school's baseball betting pool.
  • The teenaged Empress Lashara runs a complex betting pool on a school-wide competition during episode 7 of Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar. She clearly bungled things, though, because she ends up in the red after having to pay out on almost every bet made.
  • Rune Soldier Louie: Meryl makes book both times that Louie fights in formal competitions. She doesn't influence the fights, but she does rig the odds so that she comes out ahead.

Comic Books

  • Usagi Yojimbo featured a story involving a crooked bookie who has employed a skilled former samurai to help him run a con; they hustle wandering travelers into fighting duels with the samurai, the bookie takes bets on the fight, hyping up the unskilled traveler as unbeatable, then they split the pot when the samurai kills the traveler.

Fan Works

  • In the Harry Potter fanfic The Arithmancer, Hermione Granger uses her math skills and Arithmantic prognostication she learned in class to calculate the chances of various Quidditch teams -- both in the school and on the professional level -- winning. She's a borderline case, in that she doesn't actually take any bets, but she is accurate enough in her assessments that the Weasley Twins, among others, enjoy a fair amount of success with the bets they make using her advice.
  • Ranma ½ fanfiction often inflates or exaggerates Nabiki's small-time betting operation into a neighborhood-wide or even a ward-wide operation. In some of these stories it comes to the attention of local Yakuza, which is rarely to Nabiki's benefit.
  • In the Village!Verse series of fanfics for Star Trek: The Original Series, Sulu seems to be the ship's unofficial bookie.

Film

Literature

  • Ludo Bagman from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the dishonest version, accepting bets on the Quidditch World Cup at improbable odds and paying off the winners in (fake, temporary) leprechaun gold.

Live-Action TV

  • Played for Laughs in an episode of Seinfeld. Kramer places a large bet with a bookie in Jerry's name and ends up winning a large but unspecified amount of money. Unfortunately, the bookie is very new to the business and can't afford to pay out his winnings. Jerry, who has no real stake in the winnings, couldn't care less, but a series of accidents that happen to the bookie around him make him look like an unstoppably violent madman out to get his money.
  • The Scottish Sit Com Still Game has Steve the Bookie, a recurring character who runs the local (legal) betting shop in Craiglang.
  • Jon Manfrellotti is the bookie for Joe Tranelli (Ray Romano) in the 2009 Dramedy Men of a Certain Age and while not a major character is tied into many of the plotlines around Joe; in its second season, Joe himself becomes a bookie.
  • Jimmy Ford on Leverage.
  • Frank Burns, of all people, runs a crooked bookie operation in one early episode of M*A*S*H, by listening to late-night broadcasts of baseball games which will be rebroadcast the next day, and taking bets on each game from the rest of the camp while already knowing the outcome.
  • Bookies occasionally showed up as arrestees in Barney Miller, usually offering odds on various goings-on in the station even as they sat in the cell at the back of the set.
  • An episode of Bottom revolves around A Simple Plan to raise £500 to place a bet at long odds on a three-legged blind horse called Sad Ken, after the bookie tricks them into thinking it's a dead cert.

Video Games

Real Life

  • The very first bookie is well documented -- his name was Ogden, and he opened shop at the Newmarket Racecourse in Great Britain in 1795.


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