“Beth Raymer’s crackling, hilarious memoir ricochets through the gambling underworld in Las Vegas, and is peopled with all manner of lovable wack-jobs, none of whom is quite as wackya??or lovablea??as Raymer herself.”a??Marie Claire A Beth Raymer waited tables at a dive in Las Vegas until a customer sent her to see Dink, of Dink Inc., one of the town’s biggest professional sports gamblers. Dink needed a right-hand mana??someone who would show up on time, who had a head for numbers, and who didn’t steal. Beth got the job. A Lay the Favorite is the story of Beth’s years in the high-stakes, high-anxiety world of sports bettinga??a period that saw the fall of the local bookie and the birth 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, running an offshore booking office in the Caribbean. As the men around her succumb to their vicesa??money, sex, drugs,...