Bookie

Someone who runs a betting operation, usually illicit, setting odds and taking bets on just about anything.

“‘Because, look here, I’m going to have quite a good deal of money at any moment. It’s more or less of a secret, you know—in fact a pretty deadish secret—so keep it dark, but Uncle Joe is going to give me a couple of thousand quid. He promised me. Two thousand of the crispest. Absolutely!’

‘Uncle Joe?’

‘You know. Old Keeble. He’s going to give me a couple of thousand quid, and then I’m going to buy a partnership in a bookie’s business and simply coin money. Stands to reason, I mean. You can’t help making your bally fortune. Look at all the mugs who are losing money all the time at the races. It’s the bookies that get the stuff.”

P.G. Wodehouse, Leave It to Psmith (1924).