You know the scene. Two characters (usually a somewhat harmless looking protagonist against a burly big tough guy) start to fight. A crowd forms around them.
“5 bucks on the big strong guy.”, says one person in the crowd.
“10 bucks on the obvious winner.”, another crowd member bets on the same.
“100 bucks the underdog main character wins.”, shouts a supporting character also in the crowd. The others look at him in disbelief.
Then the fight happens, underdog wins, and we cut to the supporting character with a wad of cash in hand being really smug.
What’s the logistics of that money exchange? Like, if there was a bookie keeping track of who bet how much on what, and doing the pay outs, that would obviously work. Or if people individually accepted each others bets. But these stories always just display people shouting, and then the winner with the money. Is this shouting style betting actually based in reality, or is it just a nice dramatization for entertainment purposes?
A bet isnt a bet until there are multiple opposing sides matched together. If there is no bookie managing it, then it’s up to the individual participants to do it. If someone says “5 bucks on the big strong guy” it’s not an actual bet until someone comes along and puts money down opposite it.
When the supporting character comes along and says “100 bucks on the other guy whose win moves the plot along”, it’s like he’s saying " I will match all the announced bets on the big guy so far, and everyone else’s up to a total of $100".
They could take the time to show that person taking out a wad of 5’s and physically matching the bets already thrown down, but it’s more expedient to just do the shouting and then cut to the end of it.