bucket shop
n.1. 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.
2. A business, such as a travel agency, that buys unsold tickets and resells them at a discount.
[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.]