“Fuck you, Brunell!” Jerry, a bookie, yelled at his TV after the Washington Redskins’ veteran quarterback threw another incomplete pass against the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 19, 2005.
The game was being played at Texas Stadium during this always-notable Monday Night match-up. The six-point “line” was in favor of the Cowboys and Jerry’s clients took advantage of what they thought was a very forgiving sports line.
“The line is bullshit. I mean, you have a team like the Cowboys playing at home and all they have to do is win by a touchdown, and they’re up 13-0 in the middle of the fourth quarter,” said Jerry.
After having another “great” week of being a bookie, Jerry was making enough money to “take the family on a nice vacation” and maybe do some renovation on the house.
Then, in the final 3:46 of the fourth quarter Brunell found WR Santana Moss twice, for two touchdowns of 39 and 70 yards, respectively.
“I was prepared to take this one in the shorts, but, Derek, it’s like one of those things-when things are on a high, they just keep getting better and better,” Jerry said.
Wondering how this complex system worked, I began asking Jerry some more questions about this business, how they make their money and the life of being a bookie.
“I used to just bet and I was losing my ass; then I became a bookie. I realized that in the long run it is set up for the bookie to win. That’s just how the system works,” said Jerry.
Jerry’s system is designed so that all bets for NCAA Football must be placed by the start of the game either on his voicemail or by placing it to him over the phone. All his “clients” are friends or people to whom he has some type of connection. That way, he knows that “they’re good for their money.” When speaking on the phone, all bets are played in “dollars,” where one “dollar” is equal to that number in “dollars” multiplied by 100. So one “dollar” is $100 and so on. Jerry’s maximum bet is “five dollars” ($500) and his minimum is a ‘quarter’ ($25). He describes himself as a ‘small-time’ bookie.
Many bookies have similar systems for how to take bets, keep their bets organized and get money from their clients. All bets have to be placed before the start of the game. In terms of paying, bookies usually give a person a credit-line. In Jerry’s case, he does not take any money up front and his bets are paid off later by the clients because he knows each one of his clients and trusts that they will pay up. In terms of online and Vegas, betting money is always taken up front and they are paid only if they win.
So how exactly do bookies make their money? In the case of online and Vegas bookies, you have to put down a percentage of what you will win. If you are betting for the favorite, you have to put down more money than you would win, so if the bet is $100 then you have to put down $150 to win $100. In the case of the underdogs, it is the reverse scenario. For most bookies, however, a client places a bet on a particular game and whether or not that team will clear the spread. If the team being bet on doesn’t clear the spread, and especially when a favored team loses (an upset), this is where the bookie makes their big bucks. They rely on “America’s Line” to find the level of the spread, which lets the reader know by how many points the favored team is expected to win. Bookies like Jerry just take straight bets and rely on the teams not covering and being upset.
Not all bookies are like Jerry, however. Many aren’t as successful and sometimes just don’t cut it. Curtis, a former bookie, got out of the business because “he lost it all.” The gambler in his mid-20s took no fear in his profession and had proudly boasted some high roller clients.
Unlike Jerry, who knew all of his “clients” and did it for some fun, Curtis met some expert gamblers and pushed his chips all-in with his life savings as he entered into the world of the bookie.
Curtis made his money in the basement and poker rooms of area casinos. This is where he met many of his future (and now past) ‘clients.’ He studied the art of sports betting and would bet hundreds to thousands of dollars on the whole “side” of college football and pro football every weekend.
At first, Curtis loved what he was doing, because just by winning a few games a week, he could make a few thousand dollars. At the time, he was working at a fast-food restaurant and at an electronics store, so this seemed like quite the boost in income.
Luck caught up to him, though, and one weekend in the fall of 2004, it all came crashing down for Curtis. He took his normal bets, but in this particular week there weren’t any upsets, which is where the bookie’s expertise and skill comes in handy. Since upsets are what bookies really make their money on, Curtis lost a lot of money.
Even though Curtis had the money to make up his losses, the estimated amount of money he lost was simply staggering. He was getting ready to buy a house and recently had bought a car when he lost his bank account.
He never told me how much he lost, but estimating on how much his clients bet and the price of the house he was looking to buy, I estimate that he lost anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 in 48 hours.
Curtis and Jerry are real people. Their names have been changed to protect their identity. Curtis still lives at home and got to keep his car. He still works at a fast-food restaurant and still bets on sports and poker. Jerry is married and a father. He works for a very popular company in downtown St. Louis and continues to be a bookie.
Sports betting has become one of the largest illegal industries in the world. Nearly $5 billion were bet on the Super Bowl last year alone. In 1999, the National Gambling Impact Study Commission found that the illegal sports betting industry accounted for $80 billion to $380 billion.
With the Internet helping to expand this industry, an estimated one or two out of every six people bet on sports. They call it gambling for a reason.
But it doesn’t hold up for everyone, and for people like Curtis, the glorified life of a bookie can come to a crashing end. As the famous saying goes, “Las Vegas wasn’t built on a bunch of winners.”