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Steve is not your average burgeoning entrepreneur. The 27-year-old does well enough with the small grocery shop he inherited from his dad, but his main source of income comes from a more unorthodox occupation: Steve is a football bookmaker.

It is a job that links football-mad Indonesians to the gambling underworld, which mostly exists in dimly lit venues spread across the metropolis, filled with smoke and female liaisons.

Steve and two of his bookie cohorts, Robert and Dan — none of them were willing to give their real names — are making small fortunes out of gamblers’ losses, to the tune of Rp 10 million ($1,000) to Rp 20 million a month.

With the world’s biggest football event, the FIFA World Cup, drawing near, it will soon be harvest time for the bookies. Losses by fans wagering on their favorite teams could push a bookie’s income up to Rp 100 million for the duration of the event.

“Anyone who says they wouldn’t want this kind of work and cash flow is just lying through their teeth,” says Robert, a “30-something” bookie who operates mostly in North Jakarta.

“It’s definitely a lot more than what I used to make in my ‘real’ job at [an IT company in South Jakarta],” says Dan, a 43-year-old bookie who has been in the business for more than 10 years.

Dan says he got into the bookie business because he wanted to make extra money to buy luxury items, but now it’s his main source of income. “I don’t think what I do is exactly a noble line of work, but it’s easy money if you are smart and avoid doing stupid things like tricking your clients.”

Steve is the youngest of the three but already a veteran in this line of work, cutting his teeth in the business when he was in college almost eight years ago. As we talk over the phone, his mood changes constantly from calm and humorous to emotional and serious, and he often contradicts himself. When his temper flares, he stutters — a speech impediment he says he has had since he was a boy.

“Well, the money’s pretty good,” he says, explaining why he was drawn to the profession and stays in it despite the risks.

Minutes later he becomes conflicted. “It’s just for fun. It’s crazy to think that one makes a living from people’s gambling. It’s a sin.”

Steve, Dan and Robert are all mid-level bookies who answer to people higher up in the illegal world of gambling — the “superior,” who reaps the biggest rewards when his “subordinates” have clients who gamble their cash away. But the superior also suffers the big losses when clients win. Steve, Dan and Robert, the subordinates, earn their money through getting cuts from winning gamblers.

The clients are essentially betting against the big boss. But, of course, these high-rollers remain invisible. Steve would say only that his boss resides in Medan, North Sumatra. Dan says bookies like him are akin to credit-card salesmen who seek out clients who want to “invest” in a game.

Their clients range from high-school kids, who place small bets, to workers and self-employed businessmen, who tend to place bigger bets — “around Rp 5 million a game,” according to Steve.

However, bookies are now faced with a new threat that could eventually prove more harmful than any police crackdown — Internet gambling sites.

While Steve, Robert and Dan don’t seem too concerned by the competition, they admit it brings challenges.

“It’s getting a tad harder now that people have BBs [BlackBerries], so they’re online all the time,” Dan says. “But most of our regular clients still prefer calling us up and making their bets through something less complicated than going on the Internet.”

Robert thinks that most local gamblers are not yet aware of gambling sites, and if they are, “it’s more complicated and takes too long. You have to go to the Web site and use a credit card.”

It’s worth noting, however, that most international and local gambling Web sites do offer simple payment methods.

Unlike the other two, Steve says many of his customers are turning toward Internet gambling sites. The biggest reason, he says, is the real-time updates, which give players constant information regarding their bets. Steve says many of his customers also feel it’s safer to place their bets online, adding that safety is a concern for everyone involved in the business.

“I had a bookie friend who was set up by an angry client who worked with the police to capture him. It’s definitely a lot less safe these days,” Steve says.

His bookie friend eventually spent more than six months in prison.

And that’s a danger for any bookie.

“Gambling in any shape or form is illegal, and we will take steps to capture anybody who is involved in it,” said Boy Rafli Amar, a spokesman for the Jakarta Police.

During the World Cup finals in South Africa in June, Jakarta police will be “conducting investigations and taking further actions against perpetrators,” Boy says, although he declined to elaborate on what specific steps would be taken against bookies.

All three bookies say that while they enjoy the money they make, they would like to quit eventually.

Robert, a man of small frame and modest appearance, doesn’t much look like someone who makes Rp 10 million to Rp 20 million a month — apart from the gold necklace popping out from underneath his oversized T-shirt when he meets me at a coffee outlet in Plaza Indonesia. He supports his wife and two children with money won from gamblers.

Steve, on the other hand, says he spends all of his money on luxury items because his store is already his main source of income.

He says that he doesn’t spend money on things “like stupidly expensive clothes,” rather, he spends it on fine restaurants and upgrading his two cars and motorcycle.

“I buy pretty expensive [wheel] rims, for instance,” he says.

For the older Dan and Robert, the day when they will quit being bookies is uncertain. But Steve already has a date set for his retirement.

Besides keeping a low profile and avoiding detection by the police, Steve says that the real challenge for him and most bookies is the public perception regarding the less-than-respectable profession.

In fact, Steve’s fiancee does not even know about his side job.

He could only be interviewed after 11 p.m. — after he was done with his “real” job and after he had finished dinner with his fiancee and dropped her back home.

“It would be uncomfortable if she knew I was a bookie,” he texted prior to one scheduled phone interview.

“When I get married in a few months, I’m going to quit. I’m just doing this now to save up for the wedding,” he says, contradicting himself to the last.