At the end, Lonergan clearly gets told to put a "Place" bet on the horse, and he mistakenly puts a "Win" bet on it. As the scene is scripted, it sounds like they're fooling him into thinking he made a bum bet, but he really did. What is the significance of this bum bet?
"...And far away in his cage, the monkey smiled with his all-seeing eyes."
The purpose of tricking Lonnegan into making this "bum" or incorrect bet is so that he will feel losing his money was his fault and he was not conned or actually tricked out of it. This is consistent with Henry saying to Hooker near the start of the movie (at the Merry-go-Round) that a key to conning Lonngean was that they had to "keep the con, he can't know he was conned," or words to that effect.
shareThis always felt like the weakest part of the whole thing. Is there anyone who knows horse racing that can say if "place it on" was ever synonymous with "to place"?
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I agree that the "place" aspect is a bit weak because it takes too much of a chance for Lonnegan to make a winning bet or upon losing, just have Hooker and Twist shot for not being clear and costing him half a million. Remember Twist's description of Lonnegan: "He's vindictive as hell."
It might have worked better if Twist were to run in in a panic and tell Lonnegan that after the race, there was an inquiry and the horse was later disqualified - which does happen from time to time.
Save the whales; collect the whole set.
But whatever they say has to have really happened. They are betting on real races, and the actual outcomes will be published in the following day's newspapers.
It took several viewings before I understood that one myself... I couldn't figure out why he meant the horse wold come second. To anyone that isn't into race gambling lingo, "Place it on..." can easily be interpreted as "Put your bet on...".
Also there's a fallback here. If the mark has actually read up a bit and knows that "Place it on" means "Bet on the horse to place...", the fake radio narrator can just play it out differently and make the horse win. There is a weakness in that if the disappointed mark reads the newspapers afterwards, they'll see that the horse did indeed finish second... but by then the con men are long gone.
/J-Star
De gustibus non est disputandum
No, if you bet place and the horse wins, you still win although not as much as if the horse had placed.
I stand corrected.
/J-Star
De gustibus non est disputandum
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If I can resurrect an ancient thread, having just watched the film, they chose the con because Lonegan specifically was not a gambler on sports. So he has no reason to be familiar with the vernacular of horse race betting.
I suspect the problem is that you have too many paperclips up your nose