angelica's racket
I can't figure out how her racetrack con game worked. Can anyone explain it for me?
shareI could be dead wrong or missing something but what Angelica's character did was "handicap". She would lay big money on odds on favorites or odds on losers screwing with the odds or handicapping a winner. So a winner with bad odds cause it's a sure thing suddenly has bad odds with a big payoff. The mob then bets on this "sure thing" and it pays bigger than the gamble of "handicapping". It is a numbers game and it doesn't always work but playing with odds is what organized crime has done since forever.
shareBasically you are correct but usually it works the other way. It is not called handicapping though, that is a different matter. What she was doing is called handeling pay back or laying off. Primarily her role is to go to the track and bet large sums on horses that are long shots. Everytime someone puts money on any horse at the track its odds go down compared to the others. However money that is bet with bookies off track does not affect the odds. So if for instance she puts 1000 down on a 20/1 horse and this drives down the price to 10/1 and then this horse wins the bookies will only have to pay back half of what they would have to their clients who were down on that horse. For a large racket like Bobo Justice's this is a wise investment even if they rarely have to pay back on long shots. In the book and the film Bobo gets angry with her because she didn't get to the track and alter the odds on a long shot that ended up winning. She claimed she was down on the horse but Bobo knew that the odds at the track didn't budge and ended up costing his organisation 100 000, seeing as how the book is set in 1950's this is a massive amount.
You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff-- Tom Joad
"Handicapping" is analyzing the past performance data of horses entered in a race to predict the outcome. Many factors are considered: class, speed, pace scenarios, performance records, weight carried, distance to be run, jockey, trainer, track conditions etc etc.
As noted below, Lily wasn't handicapping. She was trying to lower the odds on longshots in the unlikely event one of them won - her illegal bookie boss wouldn't have to pay out as large a payoff.
This only works at small tracks or where relatively modest amounts of money are being wagered. On big race days Lili couldn't bet enough money to significantly lower the odds. Placing very large bets would draw attention to herself.
Notice she was also skimming from Bobo, keeping some of the money he gave her to bet for herself.She would pick up discarded tickets to try to pass them off as wagers she had made so Bobo would think she had bet those horses as well.
I knew I had something backwards. Thank you guys for making clear how laying off and hadicapping really works.
share