Lay the Favorite: A Memoir of Gambling
Written by Beth Raymer
Narrated by Phoebe Zimmermann
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
An eye-popping and hilarious joyride through the underworld of sports betting
Beth Raymer arrived in Las Vegas in 2001, hoping to land a job as a cocktail waitress at one of the big casinos. In the meantime, she lived in a $17-a-night motel with her dog, Otis, and waited tables at a low-rent Thai restaurant. One day, one of her regular customers told her about a job she thought Beth would be perfect for and sent her to see Dink, of Dink Inc. Dink was a professional sports gambler-one of the biggest in Vegas. He was looking for a right-hand man-someone who would show up on time, who had a head for numbers, and who didn't steal. She got the job.
Lay the Favorite is the story of Beth Raymer's years in the high-stakes, high-anxiety world of sports betting-a period that saw the fall of the local bookie and the rise of the freewheeling, unregulated offshore sports book, and with it the elevation of sports betting in popular culture. As the business explodes, Beth rises-from assistant to expert, trusted and seasoned enough to open an offshore booking office in the Caribbean with a few associates, men who leave their families up north to make a quick killing, while donning new tropical personas fueled by abundant drugs and local girlfriends, and who one by one succumb to their vices. They lie, cheat, steal, and run, until Beth is the last man standing.
Beth Raymer is a natural storyteller: funny, charming, and fully awake to the ironies around her. But she is also a keen and compassionate observer of the adrenaline-addicted, rougish types who become her mentors, her enemies, her family. Raymer brings to life a world that teems with pathos and ecstasy in this wild picaresque that also tells the story of a young woman's crazy, sexy, most unlikely coming-of-age.
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Reviews for Lay the Favorite
29 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I couldn't tell if this was non-fiction or not and after reading it, I still had my doubts but this is non-fiction. The characters in this book all had big personalities and the author seemed totally genuine and honest in regards to how she was feeling about something or her inner dialogue. I'm a huge fan of sports betting and that's what got my attention of the book. It's a fun hobby but it's so easy to see how people can/do destroy their entire life because of gambling. But I really enjoyed reading about her fast-pace, chaotic lifestyle and she'll make you feel that rush and excitement just by reading her account of it. I can't see any reason to knock this book for really anything so I give it 5 stars, but since it was about sports betting, it probably began as 4.5 before I even started it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An interesting insight into gambling and sports betting from an American perspective. Thank God for European gambling laws.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Ugh. I thought this'd make a nice vacation from the tougher Shakespeare crap, but it didn't do much for me. It's a memoir of...what, a hanger-on? This chick who spent a little time on the outskirts of a not-very-seamy-or-dangerous gambling culture. That's not very interesting! It's competently written, but so are a lot of things sold in bookstores.