Can somebody explain to me what it is exactly that Lilly Dillon (Anjelica Huston's character) is supposed to be doing at the racetrack? Is she "loading" the odds so that a winning horse pays off a lot bigger sum, or what?? I don't know a thoroughbred from a waterbed when it comes to horse racing, so if there are any horse racing or track betting experts out there, can you maybe explain Lilly's racetrack job in the movie... Thanks in advance!
share
That's one that has stumped me since I saw it back in 1990--and I have watched it many times since then! Here's what I think: Lily would put down huge amounts of money down on a horse and then that would (somehow!) affect the payouts when they won. I assume that Bobo Justus (her boss) probably had some kind of racket going on with the jockeys, trainers, etc. Does that make sense? Didn't think so.....lol
Well, I found an answer to my question right here on IMDb. I was able to find a detailed description of exactly what Lilly is up to by reading the user comments. Go to the User Comments section on the main page of "The Grifters", scroll down to Dennis Littrell's entry, on 5 June 2002. He gives a fantastic detailed run-down of what it's all about. (Thanks Dennis Littrell of SoCal!!!)
***Here's what Dennis wrote for those who are too lazy to look for his user comments: :))
>>> "What Lilly Dillon (Anjelica Huston in a long tight dress) is doing in this movie is laying off a bookie's bets. But, like a lot else in this plot-challenged movie, it's not really realistic. The way it's suppose to work is this: the bookie takes in some big time money on a long shot. This understandably scares the bookie since the fix may be on (or the nag might win legitimately) and if so, he's out a whole lot of money. So to protect himself, HE bets on the nag (using a confederate at the track).
This is called hedging. Hedging, whether in sports betting or in the stock or commodities markets works like an insurance policy. But it comes at a price. Take a simpler case. The Yankees are entertaining the Dodgers at Yankee Stadium. The line on the game is Yankees -200, that is, the Yankees are about a two to one favorite. If you want to bet on the Yankees you've got to put up $200 to win $100. If you bet on the Dodgers you put up $100 to win $200. (Actually, the "spread" or "vig" reduces that to $180.) Now suppose the bookie gets a couple of $10,000 bets on the Dodgers. Since his daily handle is usually about half that, he begins to sweat. Sure, he'll have a $20,000-day if the Yankees win, but what if the Dodgers win? Then he's out $36,000 dollars and maybe out of business. So what does he do? He hedges; that is he goes to a bigger bookie or to his Lilly in Las Vegas and lays off the action with a $20,000 bet on the Dodgers. Now if the Dodgers win he breaks even and lives to book another day. If the Yankees win, he still breaks even (instead of winning $20,000). But that's the price he pays for laying off, for hedging. Call it insurance.
Now the problem with all this in the movie is that Lilly cannot be at every race track in the country. So for Director Stephen Frears to make the action plausible he needs to show that Lilly's regular job is to hang out in California (by the phone!) to cover the West Coast tracks in case a lot of strange money comes in that the bookie needs to lay off. Presumably this is what Lilly is doing in the movie. For more realism, Frears could have shown Lilly hanging by the phone, working for several bookies." <<<
Thanks, Dennis. I'll buy ya' a bar next time I see ya' in a beer.
I disagree with that explanation of what Lilly is doing. I say this because I'm making the assumption that the mob bookmaker Lilly is working for will settle all bets at the Tote starting price. Take this example:
The mob bookmaker takes a number of bets on an outsider at an early price, say 50/1.
The bookmaker gets worried about his exposure on this bet.
The bookmaker sends Lilly to the racecourse to place a very large bet on the horse.
The racecourse Tote then shortens the starting price odds because of this very large sum of money that has been placed as a bet on the course. This reduces the exposure of the mob bookmaker to his bets, giving him an advantage.
If the outside shot does win, not only does the bookmaker have the profit from the bet Lilly has placed, but his payout to the original bettors is substantially reduced from the price they placed their bet at.
The reason I say this is as follows. Notice when Lilly places her first large bet at the racetrack in the opening sequences, the odds shorten from 70 to 22 on the large electronic Tote board? This is the odds shorterning due to her large bet.
It is a form of hedging, as the previous poster implied, but slightly different to how it was explained in my opinion. It's all about moving the starting price Tote odds, which is a questionable procedure, rather than a pure hedge by a bookmaker, which is a legitimate operation performed by
I figured it this way: Lilly puts mucho money on a long shot. Because Bobo the psycho tells her to. Bookie figures that if she wins, he's gonna get it in the crotch at those odds, so he shortens them to reduce the potential payout, just to cover his ass.
Note to readers: author aware of mixed metaphor use.
Jamietudor writes that the starting price odds shorten - thus reducing the payout to the original bettors.
I am not sure exactly how the tote works in the US, but in Australia the bookies pay out the odds at the time the bet was made! I would be surprised if this differs in the States. Consider the bet as a contract - I bet on this horse at the odds of 70/1 to win - the bookmaker accepts my bet at that price. If the odds shorten or lengthen at some time after that it does not affect the original bet, only subsequent bets.
anto
Tote in the UK pays at the starting price (SP). You can also bet with normal bookies at the SP, or at the odds when you place the bet. I'm assuming the US tote works the same - I may be wrong.
You can benefit from this as well of course. You back at 22/1, the odds lengthen to start at 33/1 - you've gained (assuming your horse wins, of course).
Cheers
Right - come to think of it, in Australia we used to have (and probably still do) - "SP bookies" - as you state SP = starting price. These were illegal phone bookmakers.
So I guess it varies.
Just in case its not clear to anyone, i thought id point out that racetracks calculate odds based on how much money is put on a horse. the favorites always get the most bets and payout the least profit for the betters (sp?). i dont know why but i decided it might be unclear to people not familiar with racing terminology, or maybe its just because im a kid.
share[deleted]
i confirmed this with a friend that used to work with a track, because i didn't totally get it when it watched the movie either. apparently horse racing is the only sporting event where they don't pay out at the odds that were present at the time that you bet, but instead at the final odds when the race begins (so there's always a last minute rush to bet at "known" odds). so what i think this character was doing was this :
1. Bobo would get a bet for 10k on a 70:1 longshot horse.
2. since he didn't want to get caught having to payout 700k, he'd give maybe 5k to her to go to the track to put on that same horse.
3. the money at the track would shorten the odds to say 25:1 (the odds start out based on how good the horses are, but soon are calculated completely by how much money is on either side of the bet), lowering his potential payout to 250k, plus the money that was put down at the track would also payoff if that horse won and he could put that 125k toward that payout. so he's gone from a potential to win 10k if the longshot failed or lose 700k if it won, to having the potential to win 5k or lose 125k. his upside is halved, but his downside improves substantially.
the scam here though, was that Lilly wasn't actually putting all the money on the longshot horse. she would put part of the money down, wait til the longshot horse lost, grab stubs from other bettors who just left them on the table when their horse lost so that she could "prove" that she had made the bets, and pocketed money off the top. if the longshot horse ever really won, she'd have to either skip town or pay off the bets she hadn't made from the money she'd skimmed. the day that Bobo got angry, she hadn't made it to the track at all, and so the odds hadn't been altered like she was supposed to be doing. her real scam didn't get caught, but she was in trouble just the same.
Interesting.... explains why I don't bet on horses!!
shareI think jnpollard nailed it totally with his/her explanation.
share[deleted]
The fact that Lillie bets on the long shots to shorten the odds is explained upfront, in Scorese's succinct narration. Then it's shown in the footage. We see Lillie place her first bet, then check the tote board for the new, lower odds. Then she places another bet, and there's a shot of her checking the tote board again--even a close-up of the odds going down still lower--then her nodding her head in satisfaction, & walking away. Her "job" of betting to shorten long odds couldn't be explained more plainly.
share[deleted]
Not only is this explanation 100% correct, it also points out how she was caught by Bobo as well as a flaw in the plot.
The amount of money bet on a horse for any type of bet is displayed on the tote board. For example, when Lilly is stuck in traffic, tote board displays that there was only $352 bet on the seven horse to win. As the post time gets closer, if there is a spike in this number, bettors will gravitate to this horse because they will assume that someone knows something. This spreads the money out and allows the bookie's hedge to work.
In this case, there was no spike in the amount bet (and the residual reduction in the odds), because Lilly didn't make it to the track. When the longshot came in, Lilly paid Bobo out of the money she skimmed from him, because he would be expecting the pay out.
When Bobo checked the handle (the amount of money bet on a particular type of bet ,I think its called) and it was still around $352 (plus the odds remained at 70/1), it proved that Lilly did not place the bet. Because she sent him the money for the win, it proved that she was skimming on other bets (as explained before), because she shouldn't have been able to afford the $10k payout.
Personally, I think that Lilly's character would have or should have known this, which I feel is a flaw. She should have admitted that she missed the bet. She probably would have still gotten punished, but she wouldn't have exposed her skimming.
For those in foreign countries: the US uses a pari-mutial system. Take all the money bet on a race. Then have the track take out their take (about 20%). Then divide the remainder among the winners. The odds on a race aren't known until the final bet is placed. Lilly's job is to bet $$ on longshots to lower the odds. Bobo (her boss) pays off at track odds. If the track odds are lowered, Bobo would pay out less if the longshot won.
I understood what was going on, but the odds should have changed more quickly. If a horse were paying 70:1, when $352 was bet on him, then the take-so-far would be about $30,000. Betting another $1000 on that horse would lower the odds to 18:1. If one bet a second $1000, the odds would drop to 10:1 and the horse would no longer be a long-shot. In other words, it would take far less than $5000 to affect the odds.
I was also puzzled by Lily's running around and picking up losing tickets. For Lily's bets to have any effect, they's have to be at least $500. She wouldn't find any $500 tickets on the floor even if the horse were a favorite. Bobo wouldn't be fooled by any bet for anything less.
She did admitted it! lol She told bobo that she was in Los Angeles because her son was hurt and that he had to go to the hospital. She knew that not going to the tracks bobo would be really mad at her. Its not a flaw.
shareEverything was explained in the Special Edition DVD in the commentary feature:
Lilly was manipulating the odds.
Past-Posting
Person who's representing the gambler at the track has a way to know who won a race in a distance place before the people hear. And so gets the bet in, in that little brief moment between the race being over and the track knowing about it (or the other gamblers knowing about it).
That's called Past-posting, its very illegal and now the technology is such that nobody can do it!
You can also check out wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_betting
Its still very complicated to me!... that brief moment thing; where did we see Anjelica hear about the race being over and someone telling her about it?