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Actor
02-28-2014, 06:29 AM
I've been reading the Parker novels by Richard Stark, a.k.a. Donald E. Westlake. For those of you not familiar with the series Parker is a professional thief and a very successful one. He has a tax free income of about $150,000 to $200,000 per year adjusted for inflation. It's all cash, i.e., currency. Bills, no coin. In one of the books he gives his girl friend the cash to buy a house in New Jersey. Seems to me that he needs to launder the money. It also seems to me that the track might be the place to do it.

The idea is to accept a small loss of your bankroll in return for a trip to the IRS window and documentation that your income is legit. Quirin's research showed that all favorites to place netted a 5% loss. Good enough.

Would the guy/gal at the window ever examine a couple of $100 bills other than to drag one of those anti-counterfeit pens across it? I doubt they'd ever check the serial numbers to see if they were on some police list. One hundred trips to the track per year means you'd have to bet $2,000 per day or about $200 per race. At a big track no one's going to notice someone with that kind of betting level.

Probably won't work for an organization but should for an individual. Put "Professional gambler" as your occupation on your 1040.

Clocker
02-28-2014, 11:18 AM
The idea is to accept a small loss of your bankroll in return for a trip to the IRS window and documentation that your income is legit. Quirin's research showed that all favorites to place netted a 5% loss. Good enough.



But payoffs on chalk place bets aren't signers, so you aren't going to have any documentation unless you can get the track to issue you a check instead of cash for a big payoff.

TJDave
02-28-2014, 02:19 PM
But payoffs on chalk place bets aren't signers, so you aren't going to have any documentation unless you can get the track to issue you a check instead of cash for a big payoff.

Signers are what you want. There are people who will pay a premium for them. ;)

Actor
02-28-2014, 08:39 PM
But payoffs on chalk place bets aren't signers, so you aren't going to have any documentation unless you can get the track to issue you a check instead of cash for a big payoff.What makes a payoff a signer? I thought it was any payoff that was $1000 or more. So if you make a $1000 bet that pays $2.20 then you collect $1,100 and it's a signer. Right? Forgive my ignorance. I've never been to the IRS window.

And not every bet has to be a signer. Just enough so that your phoney books will seem plausible when they say you are making a living as a pro handicapper. Having established that, your books can say you bet $50 on some horse that paid $10 and collected $500 profit but in reality the $50 stayed in your pocket. But now you can deposit that "profit" in the bank.

Quirin said that betting every horse with odds of 20:1 or more would net a 50% loss. If that's acceptable then a lot of $50 bets would mean every winner would be a signer.

Like a lot of things connected with gambling this is a fantasy.

Actor
02-28-2014, 08:40 PM
Signers are what you want. There are people who will pay a premium for them. ;)Interesting. Why do they do that? Has this scheme already been tried?

Clocker
02-28-2014, 08:55 PM
What makes a payoff a signer? I thought it was any payoff that was $1000 or more. So if you make a $1000 bet that pays $2.20 then you collect $1,100 and it's a signer. Right? Forgive my ignorance. I've never been to the IRS window.

A signer at the track is a pay off that requires you to show ID and to have the track fill out a report to the IRS.

For most gambling, including the horses, a signer must pay at least $600 and must pay at least 300 times the amount of the original bet. Which is to say, the payout is $600 or more on a $2 ticket.

JustRalph
02-28-2014, 09:25 PM
Not a lot of 300-1 winners out there

Actor
02-28-2014, 10:05 PM
Not a lot of 300-1 winners out thereCertainly not in the win pool. You'd probably have to go with trifectas, triples and pick six. A ticket that cost you $720 (360 bets) and paid $620 (310:1) would be counted against only one of those $2 bets. Right?

Dave Schwartz
02-28-2014, 11:26 PM
Would the guy/gal at the window ever examine a couple of $100 bills other than to drag one of those anti-counterfeit pens across it? I doubt they'd ever check the serial numbers to see if they were on some police list. One hundred trips to the track per year means you'd have to bet $2,000 per day or about $200 per race. At a big track no one's going to notice someone with that kind of betting level.

Is this the same character? Movie: Parker with Jason Statham (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1904996/?ref_=nv_sr_6) ?

I am no expert on this but am under the impression that when the money goes to the bank, every $100 bill is scanned into a database somewhere along the line. If (say) a bunch bills from a bank robbery show up coming from a single source (i.e. the bank), my guess would be that the Feds would take a closer look at that bank's individual deposits. Ultimately, they would trace them to the track, and then it would be a just a matter of time before it was traced to a particular bettor.

Of course, if the bad guy kept moving from city to city, he could probably go on for years.



Okay, I admit that I could be completely out to lunch on this. It is possible that I have been watching too many Justifieds on Amazon Prime.

:lol:

Actor
02-28-2014, 11:49 PM
Is this the same character? Movie: Parker with Jason Statham (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1904996/?ref_=nv_sr_6) ?Yes.