Lay the Favourite: A True Story about Playing to Win in the Gambling Underworld - Softcover

"It’s a great true story, told with wit, candour and fizzing energy" (Simon Shaw Mail on Sunday)

"Candid, smart, funny, wild and crazy" (Elle)

"Dark, wildly affectionate and very, very funny. It is a world filled with scoundrels, thieves and gamblers, where everyone is looking to somehow come out on top while doing what they love" (Stephen Frears, director of High Fidelity and The Queen)

"With its rich characters drawn in depth, this reads more like a novel than a memoir" (Wall Street Journal)

"Seduced by her stories, we long for this strange, sleazy and alluring landscape" (Los Angeles Times)

The Lucky Charm. The Sure Thing. The Long Shot. The Jinx.

Beth Raymer came to Vegas to live the dream. Instead she winds up waiting tables in a low-rent diner and living in a fleapit motel.

Then she meets Dink, the King of Last Vegas sports betting. Dink introduces her to the testorsterone fuelled underworld of high stakes gambling a dog-eat-dog realm of grifters, and strippers, wise-guys and hardened cons.

New to the game but with big ambitions, Beth must get smart to get ahead. The real money is off-shore, where gambling regulations don't count. But nor do other rules. In the free-wheeling caribbean Beth discovers that the difference between winning big and losing everything comes down to how sharp you play.