Lay the Favorite: A Story About Gamblers

　　改編電影【賭城風雲】由布魯斯威利、凱薩琳莉塔瓊斯領銜主演

　　2001年，Beth Raymer來到賭城，領著餐廳女侍微薄的薪水，夢想進入大賭場裡做個酒吧侍者。某天，一個客人介紹她認識一位頗富盛名的運動賭博集團老闆Dink，當時他正在找一個能幹的助手，Beth很快就拿到了這份工作。

　　接下來的幾年，她旁觀博弈界投注重心的轉移，同時由助手升級為專業玩家。在無限蓬勃的錢景下，備受重用的Beth也經營起一間投注站，只是合夥的人全都不務正業，只想靠毒品與暴力在當地狠撈一票，最後甚至跑光，只留下她獨撐大局。

　　本書便是Beth Raymer對自己這段賭界人生的精彩記錄。極富觀察力的她，以幽默諷刺的手法描寫慾望之都中的各路人物，帶有真實色彩的緊湊情節則是讓讀者的腎上腺素不自覺地隨著情節一路飆升，令人大呼過癮！(文/博客來編譯)

　　An eye-popping and hilarious joyride through the underworld of sports betting
 
　　Beth Raymer arrived in Las Vegas in 2001, hoping to land a job as a cocktail waitress at one of the big casinos. In the meantime, she lived in a ＄17-a-night motel with her dog, Otis, and waited tables at a low-rent Thai restaurant. One day, one of her regular customers told her about a job she thought Beth would be perfect for and sent her to see Dink, of Dink Inc. Dink was a professional sports gambler—one of the biggest in Vegas. He was looking for a right-hand man—someone who would show up on time, who had a head for numbers, and who didn’t steal. She got the job.

　　Lay the Favorite is the story of Beth Raymer’s years in the high-stakes, high-anxiety world of sports betting—a period that saw the fall of the local bookie and the rise 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, trusted and seasoned enough to open an offshore booking office in the Caribbean with a few associates, men who leave their families up north to make a quick killing, while donning new tropical personas fueled by abundant drugs and local girlfriends, and who one by one succumb to their vices. They lie, cheat, steal, and run, until Beth is the last man standing.

　　Beth Raymer is a natural storyteller: funny, charming, and fully awake to the ironies around her. But she is also a keen and compassionate observer of the adrenaline-addicted, rougish types who become her mentors, her enemies, her family. Raymer brings to life a world that teems with pathos and ecstasy in this wild picaresque that also tells the story of a young woman’s crazy, sexy, most unlikely coming-of-age.