Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US Und., also pay-off game) a confidence trick whereby the victim is encouraged to wager a large sum of money, having been lured into the trick when a smaller wager, also suggested by the trickster, seems to have paid off satisfactorily.

1913		Sun (NY) 27 July 40/1: It’s tough for the boys, but the pay-off is good nearly any time.
1921		Wash. Times (DC) 25 July 5/4: J.B. Norris [...] related how he had been fleeced by means of a so-called ‘pay-off’ game.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 413: Pay off game. Swindle game in which sucker is told he has won but in which he must show a certain amount of money before being paid off. Then he is robbed.
1937		(con. 1905–25) E.H. Sutherland Professional Thief (1956) 56: The wire (horse race) and the stock market are the two principal con rackets of this nature, and they are known together as the pay-off.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 311: A big-con game in which the insideman (passing as a Western Union official) convinces the mark that he can delay the race results going to the bookmakers’ long enough for the mark to place a bet after the race is run. The roper makes a mistake and the mark loses.
1951		D. Dressler Parole Chief 219: In the Payoff the victim is led to believe that the bunco artists are fleecing gambling clubs by fixing races.

2. (UK/US Und.) the division of criminal spoils.

1927		D. Hammett ‘The Big Knockover’ Story Omnibus (1966) 310: When we find the pay-off’s a bust, I said to the kid I was training with, ‘Never mind, Kid, we’ll get our whack’.
1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1946		J. Evans Halo in Blood (1988) 132: He said what he already had would get him five thousand down and five hundred a month until the big pay-off worked out.
1958		R. Prather Scrambled Yeggs 81: Maybe someone else is in on the payoff.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Syndicate (1998) 12: We all split up . . . payoff in Hollisworth two months ago.
1979		‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 206: I’ll get down tough and caper if the payoff is in a class like the old lady with the long bread.

3. (US Und.) a bribe.

1928		Phila. Eve. Bulletin 5 Oct. 40/4: Here are a few more terms and definitions from the ‘Racket’ vocabulary: [...] ‘pay-off,’ payment of a bribe.
c.1930		(ref. to late 19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 21: I ran at first a fine twenty-dollar luxury house with clean pretty whores. [...] Protection money pay-offs to the right people kept [it] open and running.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 7: He’s a week behind wit’ the payoff.
1953		J. Thompson Savage Night (1991) 5: The man who handled the payoff for that big horse-betting ring.
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 164: Darden wasn’t taking any chances that his partner would dare share in [...] a payoff.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 290: The payoff for what I had just witnessed would be so enormous.
1974		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 60: Your earners is coppers’ language for pay-off money.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 161: A new vote [...] could be obtained only by doubling the original payoff.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 87: The street hustlers, pimps, confidence men, whores, gamblers and boosters who paid off the vice and bunco details all gave their payoff to a ‘patch’.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 122: A big stink linking the top dogs [...] to political payoffs would have sunk the studio.
2007		S. Maloney Sucked In 201: Gilpin channelled his kickback earnings through the accounts, making it look like Charlie and Barry were trousering regular pay-offs.
2011		E. Beetner ‘Zed’s Dead, Baby’ in Pulp Ink [ebook] People were sticking to the story [...] too many now to mean a payoff.

4. attrib. use of sense 3, pertaining to bribery.

1944

D. Runyon Runyon à la Carte 127: I am not in the pay-off world.

5. (orig. US) the end result, the outcome, the conclusion (whether positive or negative).

1927		C. Coe Me – Gangster 196: We can use him in the pay-off.
1939		L. Short Raiders of the Rimrock 206: This, he guessed, was the pay-off.
1943		H.A. Smith Life in a Putty Knife Factory (1948) 181: This came from – here’s the pay-off – this came from the home of Irving Berlin.
1953		W.P. McGivern Big Heat 163: This call might be the pay-off, the beginning of the pay-off.
1963		G. Lambert Inside Daisy Clover (1966) 26: Here comes the pay-off.
1970		San Diego Sailor 30: This was the pay-off [...] I decided to piss off.
1990		(con. 1930s–60s) H. Huncke Guilty of Everything (1998) 84: The payoff is that when it came time for everyone to leave, nobody was about to move.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 41: Wheezer fished out the chain letter again, and read out the pay-off line, amused.

6. a (final) payment for services rendered.

1930		J. Black ‘A Burglar Looks at Laws and Codes’ in Harper’s Mag. CLX 307: They declared unanimously that it [i.e. a murder] was ‘a proper payoff’.
1938		R. Chandler ‘Red Wind’ in Red Wind (1946) 50: He took my guy and his payoff money, gun and all.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 208: Why get all steamed up in a laundry all winter for nothing? Where was the payoff?
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 43: The pay-off on the ship jumpers and the nose candy from the Italian mob.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 68: He brought out the three hundred dollars left from my pay-off.
1972		Milner & Milner Black Players 64: A good pimp doesn’t get paid for screwing [...] he gets his payoff for always having the right thing to say right on lightning tap.
1984		‘Derek Raymond’ He Died with His Eyes Open 125: No rake-offs, pay-offs? No thousand-pound roll of dirty fivers in his mac pocket?
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 39: He’d bought it with Sid’s payoff for the Bob Mitchum roust.
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 284: You’re looking for a payoff before they do the job.
2009		N. Flexner Disassembled Man [ebook] Maybe I was still with her because her daddy was filthy rich, and I was waiing like a goddam fool for my big payoff.
2013		R. Robinett ‘Wheels’ in ThugLit July-Aug. [ebook] Nick was waiting with French champagne and payoffs.
2023		M. Herron Secret Hours 351: Shelley needed a pay-off to fund her own departure.

7. (US prison) a prisoner’s hand-out on release from prison.

1929

A.J. Barr Let Tomorrow Come 148: ‘What’s the payoff from this dump?’ ‘A fin, a bull-wool suit, a pair of kicks every dick in the country can tell a mile away an’ a ducket back to wherever you come up from.’.

8. (US Und.) a confidence trickster.

1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 255: I have been a badger, pay-off, note-layer, creep, panel, and blackmailer.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 302: pay-off. A big-con man.

9. winnings on a wager or some form of gambling.

1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 653: He collected and pocketed his pay-off.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 616: There’s a guy here wants his payoff. His number came in.
1953		W.P. McGivern Big Heat 117: He arranged the payoff [...] and he handled the wire-service and all other details of the organization.
1968		T. Thackrey Gambling Secrets of Nick The Greek 77: A funny thing happened to Siegel on his way to the big payoff.
1972		N. Algren ‘The Last Carousel’ in Texas Stories (1995) 136: The fifty-fifty payoff gives you too big an edge over the house.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 110: I got a lead on a big spade who used to make collections and payoffs.
2000		G.V. Higgins At End of Day (2001) 48: The payoff if you hit was six hundred to one.

10. a ransom.

1940

R. Chandler Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 72: Somebody [...] had later offered to sell it back for what seems a pretty small amount [...] Marriott was supposed to handle the payoff.

11. a gang killing.

1940

J.G. Brandon Gang War 93: I don’t believe that it’s a gang ‘knock-off’, or ‘pay-off’, whichever you like.

12. the denouement of a book, film or play; the punch-line of a joke or anecdote.

1941		B. Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run? (1992) 79: The big pay-off scene in Nick Turner — Boy Detective I was supposed to turn in by five o’clock.
2023		S. Hart Once Upon a Prime 18: [T]he humorous limerick form has to get from setup to payoff in just five lines.

13. a blackmail payment.

1943

R.L. Bellem ‘Shakedown Sham’ Dan Turner – Hollywood Detective May 🌐 When I went to get them letters from my safety deposit box, I was just five minutes late [...] I’ll drop you a line when I need another payoff; then we’ll do business.

14. (US black) a generous person.

1994

C. Major Juba to Jive.

15. a reward, a recompense, other than financial; thus fig., the desired result.

1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 54: He was around mostly for laughs and as a little pay-off on the old-time boxing skills.
1960		J. Havoc Early Havoc 111: She [an alcoholic star] is wasting all the pay-off she ought to be enjoying.
1999		Guardian Media 12 July 6: And boy has it paid off.
2000		Indep. Traveller 8 Jan. 1: The real pay-off comes when you stumble across an island that suits your purposes.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 39: [I] set my Rolleiflex on the door ledge. I scanned [...] I caught the payoff [i.e. the desired image image] and zoomed in tight.

16. one’s deserts.

1969

P. Theroux Murder in Mount Holly (1999) 34: I plugged my best friend. He used to wise around the place all the time. Had to give him the pay-off.