I mean my god, why do you even need a bookie to bet on greyhounds? And since when is greyhound racing even a televised event??
Why not bet on the lottery, or stock market, or recruit someone to go to Vegas and bet on every sport under the sun where it is legal to do so??
Totally bizarre choice, maybe it was written as sports betting but the producers couldn't secure the rights to any other sports footage so they went with greyhound racing.
They obviously wanted the interaction with the scary bookie but the filmmakers didn't understand that bookies exist to facilitate illegal wagering, not for taking legal bets on dog races.
It's an homage to the TZ episode, which had the characters betting on horses.
shareIt's a strange sport to bet on and I wonder how much you could even make winning the longshot kind of bets, like all the day's race winners or hitting trifectas.
The trouble is, what would you use to build up your stake quickly if you didn't have a bunch of money to start out with? The stock market is complex and it's time consuming to make big gains (like buying Apple stock in the 1990s).
The lottery would be about the best way, I suppose -- public results known in time to photograph them, low upfront cost and huge payoffs. Could you risk winning it a second time?
As another poster mentioned, there was a Twilight Zone episode where a petty criminal married couple finds a polaroid camera that takes pictures 5 minutes into the future. They bring the camera to a dog racing track, shoot the results board and then place bets. Just like this movie, the things they see in the photos end up turning them against each other in the end. I would assume they kept that aspect the same as a tribute to the original story.
If they played the lottery, stock market or gambled legally then they wouldn't need the bookie and it would be a completely different movie. I like how people find what they're betting on to be the unrealistic part.
I like how people find what they're betting on to be the unrealistic part.
Certainly the writer could have had them bet on anything. There's nothing harder or easier about it. If you're going for the Bad Bookie scenario, why is picking dog racing, over horse racing, sports betting or chipmunk fighting, some sort of "easy" cop out? I don't see what honest difference it makes.
Though, I do think making up a new fictional sport might take a bit more effort. It would have been funny to see Jasper yelling at his TV, "Get 'im, Alvin! Watch out, Alvin! ALVIN!!!"
Certainly the writer could have had them bet on anything. There's nothing harder or easier about it. If you're going for the Bad Bookie scenario, why is picking dog racing, over horse racing, sports betting or chipmunk fighting, some sort of "easy" cop out? I don't see what honest difference it makes.
You suggested the writer use fictionalized chipmunk races earlier, so I'm not sure I'm understanding your concern with using fictionalized dog races, televised with bookies. At least those things are all real things.
Now you may have also seen topics about this film using British colloquialisms, despite, apparently, nary a Brit on the crew. I wonder if there isn't some British influence about the televised dog racing as well, since when I Google it, I do see a TV schedule for dog racing in the UK! http://www.ukdogracing.net/live-greyhound-racing.html
They are real things but they don't go together in the real world. It would be like having a character go to the bad part of town and buying a pack of cigarettes and a six pack of beer from street dealer rather than going to the shop on the corner. Now if this theoretical movie existed in a universe where cigarettes and beer were illegal to sell and purchase it would make sense. And if Time Lapse existed is a place where dog racing was illegal it could make sense, but seeing as the dog races are broadcast on television, it doesn't make any sense, at all.
In any jurisdiction where dog racing is legal, wagering on dog racing is also legal. Scary, underground, mob-connected bookies exist to facilitate illegal wagering on professional and college sports. Just like scary, underground, mob-connected drug dealers exist to facilitate the sale of illegal drugs.
To bet legally, you'd probably need to have money. Perhaps Jasper needed to use a bookie who would front the money for him.
Also, people still use bookies for legal gambling: http://sportsgambling.about.com/od/experiencedbettorsonly/a/localbooks.htm
Because it's the only illogical part. Time travel into the future (especially) is possible, so taking a picture of that future isn't all that unrealistic (if not in a very distant future). But deciding to use that information to place bets on racing, especially in an illegal fashion, is just stupid. You pick any random person on the street and ask them, and 9 times out of 10 they are going to say "play the lottery."
By the way, I am right behind you.
They HAD to bet on dogs because tomorrow's photo showed the results of that event and only that event. It was not their choice. Get it?
shareThey HAD to bet on dogs because tomorrow's photo showed the results of that event and only that event. It was not their choice. Get it?
I had assumed it was to attract less attention than a big thing like the lottery, or the writers just liked the idea of a shady bookie that they have to use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAIJ3Rh5Qxs
To everyone asking about this, I think you're missing a critical theme:
The characters believe (apparently correctly) that they are BOUND to the future shown in the photos. They MUST recreate what they see there.
Since they never see their future selves with winning lottery numbers, they never try to win the lottery.
They become slaves to what they believe is their unavoidable destiny. Like Callie says, she was doing what the photos told her, "I was getting pulled along like we all were."
What should be godlike power ends up crippling them instead.
In the end, they turn out to be right - there is only one timeline, and they were truly bound to enact it.
It's still possible, within the framework of the movie, to win the lottery. The character would have to imagine doing so before the next photo pops out. Then, perhaps, that next photo would show them the winning numbers (which they would then have to tape to the window the following night - still trapped by the photo but at least richer for it).
Regardless, the movie wasn't about "what you would do with the power." The movie was about the curse of knowing your unavoidable future in advance, and the effect such knowledge would have on your sense of free will
I think OP was talking about the fact that Jasper had been betting on dog racing and using a bookie for that before they were forced to do so by the photographs. It also seems to have been going on for quite a while. So the question he asks is why someone would use an illegal bookie for dog racing in general, not in regards to what the photographs told them.
shareno it would not have been possible to win the lottery becasue dont forget the photo the old lady shows them of the blood in the window was taken 2 weeks ago. the future was never going to be changed, eveything was predestined.
shareI guess they could have gone with dog fighting, but they don't print the results in the papers.
Yes, definitely, Jasper picked the dumbest way to bet, and still was even dumber to never pick a loser.