bookie

noun

Save Word

book·ie | \ ˈbu̇-kē

plural bookies

Definition of bookie

informal

: a person who determines gambling odds and receives and pays off bets : bookmaker The "line"—the Vikings over the Giants by four points, for example—establishes the point spread that the bookie believes will attract gamblers in equal numbers to each side of the bet.— Jack El-Hai Funnily enough, I was never anxious to win one of these bets. I didn't want to collect from the bookie on any of them.— Art Buchwald

Examples of bookie in a Sentence

Their bookie is giving good odds.

Recent Examples on the Web But no one predicted Michael Jordan would become a bookie. — Tim Dahlberg, Star Tribune, "Column: The new Jordan Rules include sports betting," 2 Sep. 2020 Young, who was horse race bookie and later worked in special education in schools, lives in her parents' house, which is lined with family photos. — Brian Melley, Star Tribune, "55 years after riots, Watts neighborhood still bears scars," 10 Aug. 2020 In 2008, he was accused in a civil case by the feds of being a bookie who accepted $647,211 in checks for gambling debts. — Jason Meisner, chicagotribune.com, "Highwood butcher pleads guilty to running multimillion-dollar sports bookmaking business," 10 Aug. 2020 Young, who was a horse race bookie and later worked in special education in schools, lives in her parents' house. — Brian Melley, Star Tribune, "55 years after riots, Watts section of LA still bears scars," 10 Aug. 2020 Young, who was a horse race bookie and later worked in special education in schools, lives in her parents’ house, which is lined with family photos. — Brian Melley, chicagotribune.com, "55 years after riots, Watts section of LA still bears scars," 10 Aug. 2020 The classic stars Alastair Sim in two roles -- a boarding school’s severe headmistress and a bookie brother. — John Benson, cleveland, "‘Never Too Late’ and ‘Guest of Honour’ top this week’s streaming movies in Cleveland Cinemas and Cinematheque virtual screening rooms," 8 July 2020 With that, bookies such as William Hill and GVC, the owner of U.K. high street betting chains Ladbrokes and Coral, lost their biggest money-spinner of the year, the Grand National, which is run every April at Liverpool’s Aintree course. — Geoffrey Smith, Fortune, "Life without sports—betting firms begin to tally up their coronavirus losses," 21 Mar. 2020 With nearly every competition and sports league in the world canceled or postponed because of the new coronavirus pandemic, these are tough times for bookies and bettors too. — Beth Bragg, Anchorage Daily News, "No baseball on Opening Day, yet the Mariners are somehow 0-1," 27 Mar. 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'bookie.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.