Fame
The most famous bookies in American history have two very important things in common. The first is they were all able become very wealthy taking bets and moving large sums of cash around their gambling operations. The second is what they were doing was incredibly, horribly, mind-numbingly illegal.
Criminal bookies made front page headlines—people like Frank Rosenthal, Joe Manri, and Martin Krugman, a former mob bookie who grew even more famous when a character was based on him in Goodfellas. You might think that kind of fame would be worth it. Sadly, Martin Krugman was murdered during a business (read: illegal gambling) dispute seven years before the movie was made. Talk about playing the long game.