One of the few professions that are called brokers

I have a question. If I wanted to open a pawn shop, how do I enter that profession? It seems like an odd thing to just up and start, because it requires a large sum of money (to offer in exchange for the pawned items) and an almost reckless desire to keep it (since the folks who enter into arrangements with pawnbrokers are frequently of questionable scruples). And anyway, why would I want to buy stolen stereo equipment, copies of Boston LPs, crappy guitars and cheap firearms anyway? If I were trying to put on a stage adaptation of Joe Dirt, maybe.

There are all sorts of professions of comparable integrity that I think sound much more appealing if I have a lot of unused money lying around. Bookmaking, loansharking and futures speculator all seem to be about as risky and profitable. I don't have any hired muscle, though, and that could be a problem with some of those. When a Wall Street stockbroker is all coked up he'd be hard to bring down. Maybe one of those guitars or firearms would be handy after all.

Of those, I think, I would personally like bookmaking the best. I'd post odds on all sorts of crazy things. While I was a tutor in college, I wanted to do it with class averages for the tough engineering courses. I didn't, though, because I liked being a tutor. Wait, that's not completely accurate; I liked getting paid to be a tutor. If I were a bookie now, though, I think I'd post odds on things like the over/under on the number of people who almost get in a fight at one of the bars downtown (2 a night), the next presidential candidate to say something really stupid (6:1 Romney, 5:1 Obama, 3:1 Clinton, 3:2 Biden) and the over/under on how many glasses of milk I drink in a day (2).

The only problem is I wouldn't be able to do things like which household item is more awesome when dunked in liquid nitrogen, since that's kind of subjective. We're working on a quantification, though. And not just for liquid nitrogen, either; quantifying awesome in every context. Please let me know if you are interested in sponsoring this research project. I also accept objects for pawn.