Instead of betting on greyhounds... - Time Lapse (2015) Discussion

[–] Gaze73 8 years ago

Either that or A)Make big parlays at huge odds, e.g. bet $10 that the exact 8 dogs will all win at combined odds 100k to 1 - easy million with one bet. B) don't make all bets with one bookie - of course somebody is going to question 20 winners in a row. C) Bet with actual legit bookmakers, not some shady mobsters.

And don't waste time reading this line, it's just my pointless signature.

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[–] carl_johnson-1 8 years ago

The photos had dog racing results. Pretty useless to play the lottery with.

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[–] nathanallen-88276 8 years ago

Was that a joke? I couldn't tell.

In case it wasn't, I'll explain. Rather than providing the winning greyhound results for that day, they should have provided the winning lottery numbers.

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[–] carl_johnson-1 8 years ago

Their future selves, you mean? But their past selves receive photos with dog racing results. They thought that if they didn't also put up photos with dog racing results, they'd be killed like Mr. B for trying to change things. Don't F with Time.

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[–] boxerrebellion 8 years ago

The way I understand it, they showed the current day's results (so it could have been lottery numbers, the ponies, or the Super Bowl), but when the camera took it, what showed up was the next day. There was no time travel (which is where she screwed up at the end, she thought she was time traveling instead of just seeing the future).

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[–] minhas4 8 years ago

These type of movies that involve causal time loops always come down to fate rather than free will. You're thinking of it with the idea that they are actively deciding what they want to tell themselves about the future. In actuality, they are seeing the photos and forcing themselves to create whatever the photo shows them. For Finn, he had to paint. And for Jasper he had to post the dog results. Otherwise they'd break the supposed law of continuity and die (and stop making easy money). They couldn't consciously decide to change this, they just had to do what the photos told them.

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[–] raytech-790-178703 8 years ago

Yeah, that's a good point... if it were me though and were close enough to a casino, I'd play roulette and write down all the winning numbers (casinos let you do this to track "hot" or "cold" numbers which are useless). But not for this: they can go to the casino the next day and rack up a HUGE amount of a cash-- look up lottery cheat breaks the bank by flawed wheels and you'll see what I mean.

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[–] narva24 8 years ago

Casinos are pretty similar to those bookies though - they tend to be mafia connected. Like others have said, government lottery is the way to go.

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[–] mcp-69798 8 years ago

Why do people ask this all the time, as if it was a flaw in the movie?

It's irrelevant if lottery or casino make more sense than betting on greyhounds. At first they think they have to recreate what they see in the photos, or they will die. If they had seen lottery numbers in the photo, they would have played lottery. Actually, it doesn't matter if they try to recreate what they see or not, since the photos always predict the future with a 100% precision.

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[–] nathanallen-88276 8 years ago

I'm saying they should have said to each other "Hey guys, there's this huge $100 million lottery draw coming up next week. We should hold up the winning numbers instead of the greyhound results".

And they should not look at any more photos until then, so they wouldn't have to recreate any of them.

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[–] carl_johnson-1 8 years ago

But, they didn't even know what to do with the camera at first. After getting the photo of the party, they decide to wait and see what happens the next day. So they do. That night, the party goes on, just as the camera showed it would the night before. AND that night, they also get a picture that has dog racing results on it. The decision was already made for them.

In fact, all their decisions over the next 2 weeks were set by the photo Mr. B. took of the bloody window and green coil painting.

Also, they'd still be recreating the photos, even if they didn't look at them. Per Mr. B.'s wall, they had been recreating the photos for weeks without realizing it.

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[–] mcp-69798 8 years ago

Imagine they have this idea, but when they look at the photo... it still shows greyhound results. What do they do?

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[–] nathanallen-88276 8 years ago

They would ask themselves why they would do something so stupid.

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[–] carl_johnson-1 8 years ago

They do comment several times in the film why they'd be doing what they see in the photos.

Also something to consider is Callie was already sending herself notes by this point. We don't know what her future self had sent her the morning they receive the first dog race results photo. Might be a factor too.

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[–] flamecrow 8 years ago

Actually, all they had to do was not look at the next photo so they wouldn't know what to "recreate". That way, they can choose to create anything they want to (like posting lottery photos instead) etc.

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[–] carl_johnson-1 8 years ago

That wouldn't work, I'm afraid. It would just mean they'd miss a day of money-making opportunity.

Let's chart it out.

Day 1, 8pm - Photo arrives from Day 2, 8pm. It has dog racing results from Day 2. THEY LOOK AT IT.

Day 2 - They use the the photo to make money on dog races.

Day 2, 8pm - They pose with race results from Day 2. Photo from Day 3, 8pm arrives. It has lottery results for Day 3 on it. THEY DON'T LOOK AT IT.

Day 3 - They don't make any money, since they never looked at the photo.

Day 3, 8pm - They pose with the Lottery results for Day 3. Photo arrives from Day 4, 8pm. It has dog racing results from Day 4. THEY LOOK AT IT.

Day 4 - It's too late to play Day 3's lotteries, but they use the photo to make money on the dog races.

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[–] mitzibishi (1835) 4 years ago

Because the characters were dumb, everything they did was dumb be it time travel or relationships or being friends.

The writing was pretty dumb.

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[–] windquake 8 years ago

Another issue is, if you win the lottery, you will be in the news, have a bunch of interviews, have stalkers, etc. It would make it hard to keep things secret.

You win a few thousand a day via racing bets, you can just build it up and no one will notice (other than your racing contact).

The reason they got caught, was because he never lost. If you have an inside tip, use it to win, but every now and then, you need to lose to throw off the scent.

I hate IMDB's Signature policy...

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[–] Apis (1624) 7 years ago

"The reason they got caught, was because he never lost"

That's basically it. As a bookie told Jasper, the only thing more dangerous than people who don't pay their debts, are people who never lose their bets. Our three friends made a beginner's mistake of not throwing bookie off the scent by occasionally losing some money. Second mistake was sticking with only one bookie until he became suspicious.

The most dangerous mistake they made was confessing everything about the machine to the bookie when he paid them a visit. After that, they couldn't get rid of him.

All of those mistakes were made by Jasper. But others are also to blame because they didn't participate more in the betting process with their ideas, and they didn't control what Jasper was doing.

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[–] mr159 (136) 5 years ago

This bugged me too. But I'm ok with it because it didn't affect the plot much. The shady bookies were killed before the final act. Also it was understandable that Jasper would bet on greyhounds because the movies shows us that Jasper actually had an interest in greyhound racing even before any of the time-lapse stuff started. So it was probably his immediate instinct to make money off it.

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[–] bobbydallas (8515) a year ago

the Ivan part of the plot is just stupid..
how does Jasper not realize that making winning bets will make the bookie suspicious?!

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