Bookies

[Pencey]

If someone owes a bookie money, will the bookie usually have someone working for him to help collect? Or do they hire their "muscle" from someone else?

[Baba Reily]

Do a little research. Borrow some money, don't pay it back, see what happens. :)

[Pencey]

Good idea. Mind if I use your address?

[Baba Reily]

Sure go ahead, I live at -- hey, wait a minute! I'm not falling for that one again. Christ, last time I let some guy use my address I woke up in a dark alley with one less kidney.

As for your question, do you think all bookies use the same method? Just make it believable, it doesn't have to be completely realistic, right? Since most people have never dealt with a bookie, either would look good. Just my opin.

[randesq]

this seems like one of these things that becomes most effective in film when you have a little first hand knowledge.

Not sure what you're writing but if it's any part of your script - i think your POV or structure regarding bookmaking can't be researched - you just have to know.

It's all in the tone. In the most cliched genre in film - be careful.

To answer your question.

Most bookies won't even take you with out a qualifier. Someone who knows your situation - then you're put under limits (The amount you can lose and still pay - this is what you pay and play with your bookie). tHEN YOU HIT YOUR 'COLLECTABLE' LIMIT - and it's time to pay. At this point - it's usually your obligation and it's expected you have it or will get it. If you don't have it - then you'll be given time. If you start spiting the sysytem - then you're dealt with. But never for an amount that doesn't make sense. The mob or bookmaker ain't in the whacking game - but the collecting game. And it's on a per player basis. Each player has their own set of rules.

Even mob related action (you'll be hard pressed to pinpoint mob racketeering nowadays. . . most likely the mob is the top of the amway numbers food chain, but the lunchpail larry takes the front line action.)

What happens in movies doesn't happen in really life - the stakes don't rise that quickly - only because the numbers guy wants to collect his money. He's more business man than numbers Ph.d

[Pencey]

Randesq, I recently read an interview with a former bookmaker who said that althogh the mob isn't in it anymore, guys WILL come after you with baseball bats if you can't pay. I think the only thing they wouldn't do is kill you...because after all, they do need to collect and they can't do that from a dead man.

What I'm concerned with is whether or not people who owe and can't pay would leave the country to avoid paying or getting seriously hurt. What do you think?

[randesq]

depends on a situational basis. There's lots of paper lions out there that will wave a bat - but the days of leg breaking is dwindling. Rico laws have made it very diificult to run a book where violence reigns. doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I've seen it happen and know many first hand stories, but it's a dying age. Most likely the 'enforcers' are willing to take a buyout amount or an attachment situation where they'll take an amount each month/week whatever. . . the goal is to get the money you owe. It's a business nowadays and the person who takes your action is most likely low man on the totem pole. He's responsible for the action and to the people he calls his action into. NO DOUBT there is a food chain above him - who will lean on him if there is no payment. Ultimately it is the bookmakers liability to cover a debt of someone in his stable - that is why limits are imposed and that someone most likely can't lose without having the ability to play. he'd be expected to pay off his debt before can place anymore action. It's a more clinical game nowadays and unless you're writing a period piece - be careful.

[Vigorish9]

Personally, I was a bookie-gambler most of my adult life.

I've owed and i've been owed. Get creative, guys will come and rough you up, off course, but then again
sometimes you can't get blood from a stone.

If you're a scumbag, you can get a knock for 500 hundred, but I know guys who owe big dollars and they
are fine. It all depends on the scenario.

But, if you owe a guy who is just plain pissed off you might get a bat to the ribs.

I personally have seen some crazy stuff and there are violent people out there who don't give a damn about themselves or you.

vig

[MEH7]

Well, with a screen name like Vigorish, you'd expect a great answer like this one. How often has your previous life played into your writing? Probably a dumb qestion...

[Vigorish9]

I think why I find writing about gambling so provocative is because it puts people in intense situations.

I'm from the east coast, I'm Italian, I played dice on my six grade bus with kids who are now dead.

I write about that. . . how those kids would be if they had lived to adulthood with the same character traits.

Gambling breads a subculture of people that rarely have lives that work.

Movies are about peoples lives that didn't work.

All my stories have shadows of the truth, things I've seen, stories I've heard morphed together by embellishing.

vig

[MEH7]

I hear you, my friend...I grew up in the city of Chicago - had many of the same type of experiences.

I try and use - embellish!! - on them as much as I can. These are my kind of stories, too.

[britwrit]

I did a lot of research on the New Jersey mob a few years ago and no, you don't see a lot of legbreaking anymore. This is simply because any time you threaten someone, they're going to run straight to the FBI and come back to you wearing a wire. Then it's bang, twenty years on a RICO charge. As a result, bookies are sticking with customers they know and also know are good at covering their losses.