Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. Aus., also b, booky) a bookmaker.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 30 May 14/4: An the noble Dudley pocketed the new crisp notes he deigned to be jocular at the ‘bookie’s’ expense, and expressed the hope that he wasn’t putting him to any inconvenience.
1890		Sporting Times 5 Apr. 1/2: Wanted to have a quid on Bewicke’s mount, but the infernal bookies, hah, wouldn’t bet without I paid him first.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Mar. 24/2: This scribe had the temerity [...] to back three consecutive winners with the same ‘Booky’.
1903		‘Hugh McHugh’ Out for the Coin 21: I’ve handed the good-night signal to the bookies and [...] so far as the turtles are concerned the six o’clock whistle blows perpetually.
1911		J. Masefield Everlasting Mercy 3: Silas Jones, that bookie wide, / Will make a purse five pounds a side.
1923		Wodehouse Inimitable Jeeves 112: Later I edge round to my bookie and put the entire sum on Ocean Breeze.
1931		D. Runyon ‘Dream Street Rose’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 45: Guys who play the horses are being murdered by the bookies all over the country.
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 87: I shall find out if the bookie paid him.
1953		‘William Lee’ Junkie (1966) 66: It doesn’t take the [cafeteria] manager long to spot a bookie or a junk-pusher.
1963		B. Hecht Gaily, Gaily 58: The horses on which Kirby bet had already won, but the race results had not yet been broadcast to the town’s bookies.
1966		J. Holledge Great Aust. Gamble 24: [H]e had a battery of telephones, and he could reach 60 off-course bookies in five minutes.
1976		P. Theroux Family Arsenal 169: The bookies worked rapidly at blackboards, some on stools signalled the odds [...] pointing and clapping like deaf mutes.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 64: The caddy master is a bookie, and the guys who bet with him get primo loops.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 104: Grafter hooked the bookie who replied by donging Grafter with his bag.
1999		Observer Mag. 10 Oct. 16: It was almost impossible to find a bookie willing to take a bet on him.
2000		R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] In five minutes Les had his money, and all nicely washed through a bookie so it looked like Les had won it at the races.
2003		A.N. LeBlanc Random Family 247: His mother [...] worked part-time for a bookie.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 23: He had called in six bets Saturday afternoon and lost five [...] He would need eleven hundred dollars for one bookie.
2019		G. Disher Peace 33: ‘[K]nocked off a bookie [...] got way with close to thirty grand’.
2020		D. Winslow ‘Crime 101’ in Broken 87: Sometimes these companies, like mob bookies, will lay off part of the risk.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 166: We rob this brer carrying the week’s takings from the bookie.
2022		A. Parks May God Forgive 295: Men with bookies’ slips in front of them.
2023		A. Nette Orphan Road 37: ‘What do you know of the Great Bookie Robbery?’.
2024		C. Stella Joey Piss Pot 100: ‘I’ll say it’s got something to do with a friend owes some bookie’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1, pertaining to bookmakers / bookmaking.

1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 7: Without having a single bookie door nailed shut [...] without his personal consent.
1953		J. Thompson Savage Night (1991) 5: Jake is the key witness in that big bookie case.
1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 99: Dont you know better than to knock over a bookie drop?
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 166: Something beyond the chickenshit bookie operations of Kupferman and Ralston.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 298: ‘It’s just a run-of-the-mill pay phone [...] it sees a lot of bookie traffic’.

3. as bookie’s, a bookmaker’s (illicit) establishment.

1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 555: The upkeep of a home and bookies is damn high.
1953		‘John Eagle’ Hoodlums (2021) 36: Chicago with its [...] bars, stripjoints, dance halls, bookies and honky-tonks.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 24: I remember that the bookies in the shopping centre has a toilet.
2000		Guardian 6 Jan. 27: He’s banned offshore bookies from advertising in British newspapers.