whale
n.— «In horseplaying parlance, Maury Wolff is a whale, one of the thousand or so professional bettors who collectively wager as much as $1.5 billion a year on thoroughbred races in the United States. He will not attend the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on Saturday. In fact, he and the other whales rarely set foot in a racetrack.» —“Horse Racing’s Biggest Bettors Are Reaping Richest Rewards” by Joe Drape New York Times Apr. 26, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Oofless is an antiquated bit of British slang that describes someone temporarily short on cash. It’s from ooftisch, a Yiddish-derived term for “cash placed on the table,” from German auf Tisch. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
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