From Stephanie St. Clair to Bumpy Johnson and the Mob: A Brief History of Harlem's Numbers Racket
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From Stephanie St. Clair to Bumpy Johnson and the Mob: A Brief History of Harlem's Numbers Racket
A Look at the History and Struggle for Control of Harlem's Lucrative Numbers Game
The numbers racket or policy lottery refers to a practice that was widely popular during the first half of the twentieth century. The appeal of the lottery was that it could be played for as little as a penny and had payouts sometimes as high as 600 to 1.
The numbers game was extremely popular in Black and Italian neighborhoods …
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