Review of Lay the Favorite

Title:

Lay the Favorite: A Memoir of Gambling

Author:

Beth Raymer

Publisher:

Spiegel and Grau

Date:

2010

ISBN:

978-0-385-52645-6

Pages:

228

Price:

$25.00

Reviewed by Nick Christenson, npc@jetcafe.org

December 1, 2010

One day she's a waitress at a Las Vegas Thai restaurant, then before you know it she's moving from working as part of a sports betting syndicate to helping run an online sports book in the Caribbean. In her memoir, Beth Raymer relates how she fell into the world of professional sports betting, and what that world is like.

At the risk of spoiling the story, through some zany circumstances the author finds herself working for a professional sports bettor in Las Vegas. She becomes an amateur boxer, gets accepted to film school, winds up working for a sports arbitrager, and eventually works for an off shore sports book. If anything, her path along this arc is even more haphazard and capricious than this brief description makes it seem.

Despite most of the book being about Raymer's experiences in the sports betting world, the book doesn't address any of the skills of making a living in this world, although we do get a sense of the mechanics of it. In fact, based on this book I've got no indication that the author might have learned anything about handicapping sports, although I suspect some comprehension about the way sports markets work would have to have rubbed off. She is, however, adept in the day-to-day tasks of a sports betting operation. This includes the wild swings in wins and losses, the issues involved in moving money, the difficulty with keeping track of accounts, a respect for small edges, and such.

While I have no first hand knowledge, I fully expect Lay the Favorite to be a very honest account of her life during this period. I expect this is true because nobody who wasn't honest would describe themselves the way Raymer does in this book. She is impulsive, flighty, seems to have no aptitude for planning ahead, and seems hell bent on making just about every bad decision possible. From her writing, I'm guessing that she has grown up quite a bit since the period in her life that is documented in this book. The people she works with in this book are certainly a bunch of misfits, and she fits right in.

I'm not quite sure what the theme of the book is supposed to be. Even though she sounds like one of the few voices of reason at the end of her stint in Curacao, I think it's a stretch to say that she really went through a personal transformation by the end of the last chapter. There's certainly an adventuresome arc of the book, and at the end she seems to be in a more stable space than when she started, but we know from previous escapades that this could go south at any moment. So, when I finished the book my first impression is that it seemed incomplete as a story, and I can't help but ask, "What was the point?"

Over the last few years a couple of sports betting biographies have hit the market. Of these, Lay the Favorite is the best by a considerable margin, although that's faint praise. The writing is direct, but eminently readable, and at the very least it's refreshing to read a book in this genre that doesn't drip of egomania. So, if one is looking for something in this genre, this is the best of the bunch, although the rest are downright terrible.

Really, the book is a recounting of a few hectic years in the life of a woman who hasn't grown up yet, which just happen to be spent in the world of sports betting. Those who have spent significant time in or on the edge of this world will find it to be familiar, and it's unlikely that readers with this experience will find anything especially new or insightful in her description of it. Those with a more casual interest in sports betting but little experience in this milieu will probably find Raymer's account to be more eye-opening, and, hence, will likely be more engaged by her account.

Lay the Favorite is well-written, it's entertaining enough, and it's an easy read, so for those looking for something light and sports-betting related it fits the bill. However, I really didn't find it that engaging. It's entirely possible, though, that those less familiar with the sports betting world will find it more exotic and anthropologically fascinating than I. While I don't feel that reading it was a waste of my time, I just can't get myself worked up to the point where I can honestly say that I'm happy to have read it.

Capsule:

Lay the Favorite is a memoir by Beth Raymer, a woman who accidentally found herself thrust into the world of professional sports betting. While some audiences will likely find this world fascinating, the book suffers in my eyes because I find the settings to be familiar and her character to to not be all that sympathetic. While the technical aspects of the book are good, I just can't escape feeling that there isn't a complete story here, so ultimately I can't quite feel satisfied by it.