Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCubsGo
from reading this forum, it seems like people get stiffed all the time. usually the bettors getting stiffed by the bookies. i wouldn't have guessed that would happen. i mean i know it's a very shady endeavor, but a bookie has to establish trust with his clients, and if he has 10-15 people, i can't imagine one big bet for one client being worth risking his reputation.
how does the stiff usually go? stiffer just ignores texts/calls?
There are many ways people stiff. I know some guys who flat out left town. Others have zeroed balances for "wise guy action" and threatened to ruin your reputation if you had a problem with it. If you're relatively inexperienced and this guy's been taking action for 30 years and works under mobster types, you kind of have to accept what they tell you.
One guy accidentally stiffed a week's worth of winnings when he died since figures were only reported in weekly, and my great luck, I had what was probably my biggest NFL weekend ever. (I was pretty friendly with the guy so I went to the wake and actually did confirm there was a corpse, so at least my friends got some chuckles about joking that I was standing around with a stethoscope confirming he was dead.)
Other guys simply slowpay like molasses, and in that instance, you kind of have to accept it because otherwise you run the risk of them giving up and flat out disappearing or stiffing you. I had one case where I ran a new account up to 30k pretty quickly, and almost 7 years after the fact, I'm still getting sporadic payments. Annoying that the guy who referred me said I was "lucky to be getting paid" after he swore up and down that this guy was reliable.
You would be quite surprised what stiffs are out there. There's one notorious stiff who's pretty prominent in Las Vegas gambling circles via the radio and newspapers, has a prominent role in a large gambling forum, and is notorious for stiffing credit accounts. I'm not sure why the agents don't out him, but I guess the problem is that they can't draw attention to themselves without running the risk of legal problems.
