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 as well as some Hispanic communities where it was referred to as “Bolita” meaning little ball.
The way that the game worked was a player would place a bet with a bookie by giving them a betting slip that had the bettor’s 3 numbers on it. The slip would then be taken by a “runner” who would bring it to the “Bank.”
How the winning numbers were determined continued to change as the lottery evolved. Moving from balls with numbers drawn at random to then using the last digits of the balance of the US Treasury.
The use of an independent fix…