Bucket Shop Definition

noun

A fraudulent brokerage operation in which orders to buy and sell are accepted but no executions take place. Instead, the operators expect to profit when customers close out their positions at a loss.

American Heritage

A business involved in selling, chiefly by telephone solicitation, that uses high-pressure sales tactics, fraudulent claims, etc.

Webster's New World

An unlicensed travel agency which sells discounted airline tickets.

Webster's New World

(pejorative, finance) A stockbroking firm which sells stock to clients when it has an undisclosed relationship with that company or its owners.

Wiktionary

(law) A legal services firm selling heavily discounted legal services and documents made in large volume from boilerplate text and clauses, sometimes as a white labelled loss leader.

Wiktionary

Other Word Forms of Bucket Shop

Noun

Singular:

bucket shop

Plural:

bucket-shops

Origin of Bucket Shop

From bucket shop a saloon selling small amounts of liquor in buckets, from its resemblance to the forerunner of such brokerage operations, which dealt in small units of stocks and commodities

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
bucket + shop

From Wiktionary