He checks his phone.
Puts it down, shifts his position on the couch, picks it back up again.
The visiting team scores.
Emotion comes - is quickly restrained.
"I don't usually watch the games," he says, now standing. "Too superstitious."
Instead, he'll usually watch TV with his kids. Go hang out with his girlfriend. Take care of the myriad other trivial daily life tasks we're all forced to endure.
He's not some big wig, some shark in Vegas or Reno, planning to break your legs if you don't come up with cash. He's not some guy in a suit and tie, showing up on your doorstep to collect or grudgingly make payouts that come in digits greater than three.
No, he's just another guy, looking to make cash on the side, to help feed his kids and pay his bills.
He's no shark - at least not in the sense you're probably thinking. He's your friendly, neighborhood bookmaker - or "bookie" for short. He's the guy you hit the bar with, the guy whose kids you pick up from football practice. He's the guy you went to high school with.
And to you, he's Vegas.
Only don't mistake the fact that he's not a shark for meaning he's a minnow.
He'll goad you; maybe he'll even tempt you. The only thing he won't do is pressure you and, more often than not, there's really no need.
He knows what he's doing - and even more important, he's good at it.
***
"People plead for their ability to gamble," says the bookmaker, who spoke to HNGN on the condition of anonymity due to the illegal nature of his work. He makes no attempt to hide the incredulity in his voice as he says this, leaning over to show me messages from clients on his phone.
But even as he's showing them to me, even as he's laughing at the unbelievable ridiculousness of it all, he can't help his softer side, his prideful, compassionate nature from coming through.
"Have I ever cheated anybody? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Because I wouldn't want that done to me," he says.
Sports-betting, both legal and of the kind the bookmaker engages in, has lived an inconceivably healthy existence in the U.S. for decades. From 2006 to 2012, the average total amount wagered legally on sporting events rose from $2.43 billion to $3.45, according to the website Statista.
According to sportingpedia at the moment, four states - Nevada, Delaware, Oregon and Montana - allow some form of sports-betting with the majority of sports-based gambling done in Las Vegas. New Jersey governor Chris Christie recently lifted his state's ban on sports betting, but no racetrack or casino will allow it due to concern over federal sanctions.
American's are expected to make $3.8 billion worth of illegal bets on the impending Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, according to the American Gaming Association. The average annual legal wagers on the Super Bowl amounts to approximately $100 million, meaning the illegal market is 38 times greater than the legal one.
The National Gambling Impact Study Commission estimated that illegal sports gambling in the U.S. could amount to somewhere between $80 billion and $380 billion annually, per the New York Times.
In the small town in the Northeastern portion of the U.S. the bookmaker lives in - full of second-generation immigrants, the relics of a bygone age, the glitz and glamor of Las Vegas a million miles, a lifetime, away - these figures are beyond meaningless.
Most of his clientele is made of friends, friends of friends, casual acquaintances and even some family. These are people you see around town. People, who frequent all the same bars and restaurants, take their kids to the same schools, drive the same roads and attend the same churches.
And so he, this bookmaker, this bet taker, does his work - his shadowy back-room work, accepting illegal bets on sporting events - with a knowing, friendly, oftentimes personal touch.
"I've got a guy, a close friend; our kids are very, very close," the bookmaker explains. "We spend time at each other's houses in the summer, we do activities together, and our families are close. Not that it got weird, but it got different. It didn't change the relationship that much but, he got down - a lot.
"I didn't even want to take his money because it was just weird to me, and when I went down just to hang out at his house with the kids and everything and he tried to hand me money, I tried not taking it. And his response to me was, 'If I won this week, I would take your money.'
"And that made me feel better."
The symbiotic nature of the relationship is hard to ignore. The gamblers want to gamble. The bookmaker wants their money and, in all reality, probably enjoys a bit of the "gambler's high" himself.
But, whereas it's a tight rope for the gambler, it's a broad, well-kept bridge for the bookmaker.
The bookmaker might lose certain games, he might have bad weeks. That's where the trick lies though. That's where your friendly neighborhood bookmaker thrives, where he - literally and figuratively - makes his money.
"Even though it felt weird taking his money, I felt justified knowing that he knew the stakes going in," he says. "I didn't hammer him, he was probably down $2,500 and we settled for $500."
And this is at the heart of the bookmaker's operation - a willingness to work with his clients. They know him. They like him.
Why?
Because he'll work with them, he'll cut them deals, he'll take $50 when they really owe $200. To them, he's doing them a favor. To him, he's keeping them as clients.
"If the Patriots are beating the Bills by 14 points and the line is 8 points and the Bills score a touchdown with 35 seconds left, where it doesn't really count but they cracked the line and everybody who took the Patriots loses, and they get upset, I'll say 'Hey listen, it was a backdoor cover," he explains. "Let it go. Don't worry about it.'
"I'll just charge them the vig. So if they bet $100, instead of losing $110, they lost $10 bucks. To them they feel great and I did them a favor - which I did - but that keeps them with me."
The bookmaker knows and, in many instances, carries a certain and sometimes deep affection for these people that bet with him.
But the bookmaker is also shrewd.
He knows that these people - his friends, his neighbors - want to bet and they want to win. They want to take his money.
He wants them to stay with him. He wants to take their money.
So he settles, almost always settles, because something is better than nothing. A happy client is better than no client at all.
It's the same principle as knowing that human nature means people are much more willing to do a small favor after being asked to do a larger one. The lesser pain of the smaller payout makes the clients happy. They're still losing, but they're appreciative of the bookmaker for taking a smaller chunk of their money.
"They literally send heartfelt messages thanking me and in a strange way it's a compliment, but at the same time I'm thinking, 'I did one aspect of my job, of keeping my business up and running, by keeping my customer,'" he says.
He estimates that his to-be-collected balance for 2014, as of early January, is around "$25,000-30,000," the bulk of which is owed to the bookmaker by one heavy hitter - a local politician with whom the bookmaker has a special arrangement.
"Another close friend, he's got a settlement coming, we've got a mutual agreement, so I know he's not gonna burn me," the bookmaker explains. "He just has a continuous running tab. I get a couple hundred bucks here and there from him just out of good faith - he gave me a couple grand early in the year - but he's down a lot.
"His lowest bet that he calls in are between $1200-$1600. It's nothing for him to lose $10,000 in a day then win back maybe $6,000. He calls in $400 parlays, which, if he hits on a three-teamer, it's thousands. If he loses, it's about a thousand."
A parlay is a combination bet - it's the linking together of two or more individual wagers, with the outcome dependant on each bet hitting. The probability of the bet actually coming in decreases, but the potential payout increases.
But the close nature of all these relationships, coupled with the focus on money - the ultimate asset, the medium of the wealthy elite and the poor alike - lead to strained and, if the bookmaker isn't careful, broken relationships.
"There are a small handful of people who, in the beginning of the year, got down big, early - too much money too fast. Couple I haven't heard from since. It angers me, obviously, because they owe me money," he says.
This is where the bookmaker shows his true colors, where he bares his teeth.
He's no shark, but he's also no minnow.
Part two of this series will be published Sunday morning.
