Lay the Favorite

Plot

Beth is becoming bored with her life in Florida, doing stripteases and lap dances for private customers. Her dad, Jerry, tells her to follow her dream of moving to Las Vegas, where she seeks honest work as a cocktail waitress.

A young woman named Holly, who lives at the same Vegas motel, arranges for Beth to meet Dink Heimowitz, a professional gambler who follows the fast-changing odds on sporting events and employs assistants at Dink, Inc., to lay big-money bets for him. Beth is intrigued and it turns out she has a good mind for numbers, easily grasping Dink's system and becoming his protégée. A young journalist, Jeremy, becomes attracted to Beth, but she is hooked on the excitement and income that gambling provides and is not ready to settle for any kind of normal life.

When she begins expressing a more personal interest in her much-older mentor, Dink's sharp-tongued wife, Tulip, lets it be known in no uncertain terms that she wants Beth out of her husband's life. Against his advice, Beth accepts a similar job for a rival gambler, a man called Rosie who runs an illegal operation based in Curaçao. She succeeds there at first, but both Rosie and the job turn out to be extremely dangerous, and several lives depend on the outcome of one last game of basketball.

Cast

Production

Filming began in April 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Shooting also took place in New Orleans, and New York City. It was released January 21, 2012.

Reception

The film received negative reviews from critics. It holds a 19% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 48 reviews.