What is meant by the title "The Color of Money"?

Question

I remember encountering the phrase when I was a kid, not knowing the context, not being able to get a satisfactory answer from the adults, and figuring I'd discover it when I was older.

Now it's 700 years later and I'm re-watching the Scorsese film, which is loosely based on the novel of the same name, and realizing I still don't know what the phrase means.

I do have this vague feeling that the phrase pre-dates the novel, but obv could be mistaken.

So, why is this book called "The Color of Money"?

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Epilogue

I feel I should explain why I accepted an answer with so few votes in comparison to the others. I don't think I've ever agonized so much over an SE answer.

I think it's a coincidence that both pool tables and currency notes are green. At best a happy one, at worst a superficial one whose obviousness threatens to obscure more meaningful readings. Moreover, the table doesn't have to be the same color as currency for the author to say that a pool hustler looks out over the baize and metaphorically sees the riches he hopes to win on that battlefield.

I think Tevis riffed an idiom that pool gamblers use to demand proof of value because the characters in his story are very concerned with whether they and each other are actually in possession of what is required to make their scheme work. It's all a big gamble built on top of many smaller gambles, and their overarching concern is with the color of their own money, so to speak. And to resort again to hypotheticals, if it were common for gamblers to say "let me heft your coinpurse," I think the book would be titled "The Weight of Coinpurses" or somesuch.

Many thanks to everybody who contributed to the discussion.

Answer 1

D. A. Hosek's quote from the novel is interesting and relevant, but fails to note that it riffing on an old phrase.

The Colour of Money

The colour of money is a phrase that is often used in the betting world, but what exactly does the colour of money mean?
...
in the betting world the colour of money has a more precise meaning. In this case, to see the colour of someone’s money means to see proof that the person has money to bet with.

For example, if there were two men in a bar and one invited the other to bet £50 on a game of pool, the person being invited to bet might respond: “Show me the colour of your money first,” which basically means, “Let me see that you have £50 on you to bet with.” If the bettor can demonstrate that he has the cash on him to bet with, the wager might be accepted, but if the bettor can’t show the colour of his money, it would probably be rejected.

So, it is a phrase that a pool hustler might use in regard to making a bet. But also has a clever double meaning with pool tables and dollar bills both being green.

The phrase itself dates back to at least 1905, if not older.

Answer 2

In the novel, Tevis writes:

His skill on the arena of green cloth—cloth that was itself the color of money—could never be only pretense.

So the idea is making the connection between the green baize of the pool table with the green color of US paper currency (the green is more pronounced on the reverse of the bill, which is why one of the nicknames for US paper money is “greenbacks”).

Answer 3

Hosek is right, but further connotations of the color of money refer to the fact that profit and gain are powerful, perhaps the most powerful, driving forces behind human behaviour (often at its worst). Observe also that "color" can connote mood, conviction, political or philosophical ideology.

What's the colour of money, what's the colour of money?

Don't tell me that you think it's green

me I know it's red

Answer 4

A compendium of examples

I have recently stumbled across a couple uses of the idiom, and I've found them enlightening. Here's a list, which I will add to over time:

1. Said by a loan shark to a third party, after being paid in full but also verbally confronted by an indignant, hulking debtor who has frequent business with him:

   "Whew. Big hick. The color of his money's all right, but I wish he wasn't so touchy."
   (the 1950 movie The Asphalt Jungle @ 30m06s)

   The thrust of his remark is that he tolerates the indignant guy's bristly bullying because he can be counted on to pay the shark what he owes. He implies that where he would draw the line is a touchy bully who frequently tried to pay his debts with money of the wrong color (which would presumably be wrongly-colored because it's either foreign or counterfeit, and unacceptable as payment).

2. Said by a smuggler to the person who hired him, when it came time to demand payment:

   "Now let's see the color of it, Mr Sing."
   (the 1950 movie The Breaking Point @ 27m28s)

   The smuggler is prompting Mr Sing to immediately produce and surrender the payment they agreed upon. He says it in a way that almost implies curiosity, as though he's uncertain what form of payment to expect.