Report Illegal Gambling New York

The history of gambling in the United States covers gambling and gaming since the colonial period.

May 22, 2012 ICE's Homeland Security Investigations special agents and New York Police Department (NYPD) officers swarmed a six-story building in the heart of Chinatown Monday evening with search warrants to seize proceeds from an illegal gambling parlor. Nearly half of the building was used for illegal gambling activities. The New York State Gaming Commission, the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) and the New York Council on Problem Gambling have formed the Responsible Play Partnership to address problem gambling in New York State. The corrosive effect legalized gambling has on government itself is also a cause for concern. As one editorial in New York Times noted, 'Gambling is a business so rich, so fast, so powerful and perhaps inevitably so unsavory that it cannot help but undermine government.' (10) Legal and Illegal Gambling.

4Late 19th century
520th century
- 5.3Localities
8Further reading

Colonial[edit]

Caricature of gambling, showing a number of men — and one woman — at an early roulette table, ca. 1800.

Games of chance came to the British American colonies with the first settlers.^[1] Attitudes toward gambling varied greatly from community to community, but there were no large-scale restrictions on the practice at that time.

By the 1680s, an emerging gentry in Virginia, the elite of the richest landowners, cemented their economic status through their iron grip on gambling in horse racing. The heavy bets demonstrated their courage and skill and promoted a sense of shared values and consciousness among the gentry. This clique of these wealthy Virginian landowners made elaborate rules, established by the formal codes on how much to bet, and marginalized the role of the non-gentry. They developed a code of honor regarding acquisitiveness, individualism, materialism, personal relationships, and their right to be rulers. Not until the mid-18th century, with the emergence of Baptists and Methodists who denounced gambling as sinful, was there any challenge to the social, political, and economic dominance of this Virginian over-class.^[2]

Historian Neal Millikan found at least 392 lotteries were held in the 13 colonies using newspaper advertisements in the colonial era.^[3]

Lotteries were used not only as a form of entertainment but as a source of revenue to help fund each of the 13 original colonies. The financiers of Jamestown, Virginia funded lotteries to raise money to support their colony.^[4] These lotteries were quite sophisticated for the time period and even included instant winners. A 1769 restriction on lotteries by the British crown became one of many issues that fuelled tensions between the Colonies and Britain before the American Revolution.^[5]

Early national trends[edit]

A Sunday cock-fighting event in early New Orleans.

Lotteries continued to be used at the state and federal level in the pre-revolutionary America. New Orleans emerged as the nation's leading gambling centre. A wave of hostility against the sinfulness of gambling emerged in the religious revivals that comprised the Second Great Awakening and the Third Great Awakening. The moralists concentrated on state legislatures, passing laws to restrict gambling, pleasure halls, horse racing, and violations of the Sabbath (working on Sundays). Despite the attempted restrictions, gambling houses grew in popularity in various communities across the colonies. Local judge Jacob Rush told men 'that not all sports were banned, only those associated with gambling. Unadulterated amusement was permissible'. Rush continued to condemn gambling as immoral, because 'it tyrannises the people beyond their control, reducing them to poverty and wretchedness. The mind is deeply contaminated, and sentiments, the most hostile to its final peace and happiness, are harboured and indulged'^[6]

Gambling was made illegal and forced to locate in safe havens such as New Orleans or on riverboats where the captain was the only law in force. Anti-gambling movements shut down the lotteries. As railroads replaced riverboat travel, other venues were closed. The increasing pressure of legal prohibitions on gambling, created risks and opportunities for illegal operations.^[1]

Frontier[edit]

What States Is Gambling Illegal

From 1848 to 1855, the California Gold Rush attracted ambitious young prospectors from across the world, to prospect for gold and gamble away were two sides of their manliness.^[7] By the 1850s, the influx of aspiring prospectors had made San Francisco a world-famous city. San Francisco had overtaken New Orleans as the gambling capital of the US. However, as respectability set in, California gradually strengthened its laws and its policing of gambling; the games went underground.^[1]

Gambling was popular on the frontier during the settlement of the West; nearly everyone participated in games of chance. Towns at the end of the cattle trails such as Deadwood, South Dakota or Dodge City, Kansas, and major railway hubs such as Kansas City and Denver were famous for their many lavish gambling houses. Frontier gamblers had become the local elite. At the top of the line, riverboat gamblers dressed smartly, wore expensive jewelry, and exuded refined respectability.^[8]

Late 19th century[edit]

Horse racing was an expensive hobby for the very rich, especially in the South, but the Civil War destroyed the affluence it rested upon. The sport made a come back in the Northeast, under the leadership of elite jockey clubs that operated the most prestigious racetracks. As a spectator sport, the races attracted an affluent audience, as well as struggling, working-class gamblers. The racetracks closely controlled the situation to prevent fraud and keep the sport honest. Off-track, bookmakers relied upon communication systems such as the telegraph and a system of runners which attracted a much wider audience. However, the bookmakers paid off the odds that were set honestly at the racetrack.^[9]

Chicago[edit]

In Chicago, like other rapidly growing industrial centres with large immigrant and migrant working-class neighbourhoods, gambling was a major issue, and in some contexts a vice. The city's wealthy urban elite had private clubs and closely supervised horse racing tracks. The workers, who discovered freedom and independence in gambling, discovered a world apart from their closely supervised factory jobs. They gambled to validate the risk-taking aspect of masculinity, betting heavily on dice, card games, policy, and cockfights. Already by the 1850's, hundreds of saloons offered gambling opportunities, including off-track betting on the horses.^[10]^[11] Historian Mark Holler, argues that organised crime provided upward mobility to ambitious people in poverty stricken non-white communities. The high-income, high-visibility vice lords and racketeers built their careers and profits in these low income neighbourhoods, often branching into local politics to protect their domains.^[12] For example, in 1868-1888, Chicago linchpin, Michael C. McDonald—'The Gambler King of Clark Street'—kept numerous Democratic machine politicians on expense accounting to protect his gambling empire and keep the reformers at bay.^[13]

In larger cities, the exploitation, inherent in illegal gambling and prostitution, was restricted to geographically-segregated red-light districts. The business owners, both legitimate and illicit, were pressured into making scheduled payments to corrupt police and politicians, which they disguised as a licensing expense. The informal rates became standardised, for example, in Chicago in 1912, in ranges of $20 a month for a cheap brothel to $1000 a month for luxurious bordellos. Reformist elements never accepted the segregated vice districts and they wanted them all permanently shut down. In large cities, a influential system of racketeers and a vicious clique of vice lords was economically, socially and politically powerful enough to keep the reformers and upright law-enforcement at bay. Finally, around 1900–1910, the reformers with the support of law enforcement and legislative backing, grew politically strong enough to shut down the destructive system of vice and the survivors went underground.^[14]

20th century[edit]

Numbers racket[edit]

Segregated neighbourhoods in larger cities starting in the late 19th century were the scene of numerous underground 'numbers games', typically controlled by criminals who paid off the local police, they operated out of inconspicuous 'policy shops' usually a saloon, where bettors choose numbers. In 1875, a report of a select committee of the New York State Assembly stated that 'the lowest, meanest, worst form ... [that] gambling takes in the city of New York, is what is known as policy playing'. The game was also popular in Italian neighbourhoods known as the Italian lottery, and it was known in Cuban communities as bolita ('little ball').^[15] By the early 20th century, the game was associated with big-city slums and could be played for pennies. The bookies would even extend credit, and there were no deductions for taxes.^[16] Illegal gambling, which had the same organisers and support systems as illegal liquors in the 1920's, lead to powerful criminal syndicates in most large cities.^[17]

Reformers[edit]

Reformers led by the evangelical (Protestant) christian movement, succeeded in passing state laws that closed nearly all the race tracks by 1917. However, slot machines, gambling houses, betting parlours, and policy games flourished, just as illegal alcohol did during Prohibition.^[18] The Prohibition of most forms of alcohol, was an important reform for changes in social terms and health terms in America, but in the 1920's, due to the passing of anti-prohibition legislation, much of their influence was discredited. Horse-racing made their comeback in the 1920's, as state Governments legalised on-track betting as a popular source for state revenue and legalised off-track betting regained its popularity.^[19]

The Great Depression saw the legalisation of some forms of gambling such as bingo in some cities to allow churches and charities to raise money, but most gambling remained illegal. In the 1930's, 21 states opened race tracks.^[20]

Localities[edit]

Some cities such as Miami, the 'Free State of Galveston in Texas,' and Hot Springs, Arkansas, became regional gambling centers, attracting gamblers from more prudish rural areas.^[21]

New York City[edit]

At the turn-of-the-century in 1900, gambling was illegal but widespread in New York City. The favorite activities included games of chance such as cards, dice and numbers, and betting on sports events, chiefly horse racing. In the upper class, gambling was handled discreetly in the expensive private clubs, the most famous of which was operated by Richard Canfield, who operated the Saratoga Club.^[22] Prominent players included Reggie Vanderbilt and John Bet-a-Million Gates. The chief competitor to Canfield was the 'Bronze Door,' operated 1891–1917 by a syndicate of gamblers closely linked to the Democratic machine represented by Tammany Hall.^[23] These elite establishments were illegal and paid off the police and politicians as needed. The working-class was served by hundreds of neighborhood gambling parlors, featuring faro card games, and the omnipresent policy shops where poor folks could bet a few pennies on the daily numbers, and be quickly paid off so they could gamble again. Betting on horse racing was allowed only at the tracks themselves, where the controls were tight. The most famous venue was Belmont Park, a complex of five racecourses, a 12,000 seat grandstand, and multiple stables, centered around a lavish clubhouse. Middle-class gamblers could frequent the city's race tracks, but the center of middle-class moral gravity was strongly opposed to all forms of gambling. The reform movements were strongest in the 1890s. It was led by men such as the Reverend Charles H. Parkhurst, the leading Presbyterian pastor and president of the New York Society for the Prevention of Crime;^[24] reform mayor William L. Strong, and his police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt. Reformers passed laws in the state legislature against any emerging gambling venue. Such laws were enforced and most of the small towns and rural areas, but not in New York's larger cities, where political machines controlled the police and the courts.^[25]

Saratoga Springs[edit]

After 1870, Saratoga Springs became the nation's top upscale resort relying on natural mineral springs, horse racing, gambling, and luxury hotels. World War II imposed severe travel restrictions which financially ruined the tourist industry. Since 1970 there has been a revival with a renovated racetrack, a 28-day exclusive racing season, a new interstate, winter sports emphasis, and an influx of young professionals.^[26]

Cleveland[edit]

Horse racing has a long history in Cleveland, as elites by the 1860s worked to keep gamblers and criminals at bay.^[27]

The Mayfield Road Mob, based in the Little Italy district, became a powerful local crime syndicate in the 1920s and 1930s through bootlegging and illegal gambling. Local gangsters worked deals with the Jewish-Cleveland Syndicate, which operated laundries, casinos, and nightclubs. Both groups profited from illegal gambling, bookmaking, loan sharking, and labor rackets in northern Ohio.^[28]

The 'Harvard Club' (named after its Harvard street location in the Cleveland suburbs) operated in 1930–41 as one of the largest gambling operations attracting customers from his far as New York and Chicago. It moved to different locations on Harvard Street, which accommodated 500–1,000 gamblers who came to shoot craps and to play the slot machines, roulette, and all-night poker. It defied numerous raids until it was finally shut down by Frank Lausche in 1941.^[29]

Eliot Ness, after building a crime-fighting national reputation in Chicago, took on Cleveland, 1934–1942. He tried to suppressed labor-union protection rackets, illegal liquor suppliers, and gambling, but his reputation suffered.^[30]

Legalization in states[edit]

The Las Vegas Strip became the nation's casino capital.

To overcome the Great Depression, Nevada legalized gambling as a way to bring economic relief.^[31] In 1931, Nevada legalized most forms of gambling when Assembly Bill 98 was signed into law, providing a source of revenue for the state.^[32] Interest in development in the state was slow at first, as the state itself had a limited population. After 1945, enforcement of gambling laws became more strict in most places and the resort town of Las Vegas became an attractive target for investment by crime figures such as New York's Bugsy Siegel. The town rapidly developed during the 1950s, dooming some illegal gambling venues such as Galveston. Thanks to cheap air travel and auto access from California, Nevada, and Las Vegas, in particular, it became the center of gambling in the U.S. In the 1960s, Howard Hughes and other legitimate investors purchased many of the most important hotels and casinos in the city, gradually eliminating the city's connections to organized crime.^[33]

Southern Maryland became popular for its slot machines which operated legally there between 1949 (1943 in some places) and 1968. In 1977, New Jersey legalized gambling in Atlantic City. The city rapidly grew into a significant tourist destination, briefly revitalizing what was previously largely a run-down slum community. In 1979, the Seminole tribe opened the first reservation-based commercial gambling beginning a trend that would be followed by other reservations.^[34] Gradually, lotteries and some types of parimutuel betting were legalized in other areas of the country.

In the 1990s, riverboat casinos were legalized in Louisiana and Illinois in addition to other states.^[35] In 1996, Michigan legalized gambling in the city of Detroit creating an economic center for potential casino growth. In an attempt to curb the ill effects of the rapid rise in gambling on sporting events, Congress passed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992.^[36] This was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2018 because it was unconstitutional for the federal government to prohibit states from legalizing it under state law.^[36]

In the early 21st century, Internet gambling grew rapidly in popularity worldwide Global Internet gambling reaching US $34 billion in 2011. This is higher than worldwide movie box office revenues and represents 9% of the international gambling market.^[37] However, interstate and international transactions remained illegal under the Federal Wire Act of 1961, with additional penalties added by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.

Notes[edit]

^ ^a^b^c'History of Gambling in the United States'. Gambling in California. California State Library. March 1997. Archived from the original on 2009-10-08.
^Timothy H. Breen, 'Horses and gentlemen: The cultural significance of gambling among the gentry of Virginia.' William and Mary Quarterly (1977): 239-257. online
^Neal Millikan, Neal (2011). Lotteries in Colonial America. Routledge. p. 2. ISBN9781136674464.
^Roger Dunstan (January 1997). 'History of Gambling in the United States'. Archived from the original on September 10, 2010.
^Daniels, Bruce Colin (1995). Puritans at play: leisure and recreation in colonial New England. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 182. ISBN978-0-312-12500-4.
^J. Thomas Jable, 'Aspects of Moral Reform in Early Nineteenth-Century Pennsylvania.' Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 102.3 (1978): 344-363. pp 346-47.
^Christopher Herbert, 'Life's Prizes Are by Labor Got': Risk, Reward, and White Manliness in the California Gold Rush.' Pacific Historical Review 80.3 (2011): 339-368. online
^G. R. Williamson (2012). Frontier Gambling. p. 87. ISBN9780985278014.
^Steven Riess, 'The Cyclical History of Horse Racing: The USA's Oldest and (Sometimes) Most Popular Spectator Sport' International Journal of the History of Sport (2014) 31#1 pp 29-54
^See Christopher Thale, 'Gambling' Encyclopedia of Chicago (2004)
^Richard C. Lindberg, Chicago by Gaslight: A History of Chicago's Netherworld: 1880-1920 (2005) excerpt
^Mark H. Haller, 'Organized Crime in Urban Society: Chicago in the Twentieth Century' Journal of Social History (1971) 5#2 pp. 210-234 Online
^Richard C. Lindberg (2009). The Gambler King of Clark Street: Michael C. McDonald and the Rise of Chicago's Democratic Machine. SIU Press. pp. 2–7. ISBN9780809386543.
^Perry Duis, The Saloon: Public Drinking in Chicago and Boston, 1880-1920 (1983) pp 230-73.
^Holice and Debbie, Our Police Protectors: History of New York PoliceChapter 13, Part 1Archived 2008-06-04 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed on 4/2/2005
^St. Clair Drake; Horace R. Cayton (1945). Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. pp. 470–94. ISBN9780226253350. also online, free to borrow
^John Burnham, Bad Habits (1993) pp 63-66
^David G. Schwartz (2005). Cutting The Wire: Gaming Prohibition And The Internet. Uof Nevada Press. pp. 26–27. ISBN9780874176209.
^Riess, 'The Cyclical History of Horse Racing.'
^Schwartz, Cutting The Wire pp 26–27.
^Dombrink, John; Thompson, William Norman (1990). The last resort: success and failure in campaigns for casinos. U of Nevada Press. p. 176. ISBN9780874171402.
^Asbury (1938). Sucker's Progress. pp. 419–69. ISBN9781787201354.
^Luc Sante (2003). Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York. p. 172. ISBN9780374528997.
^Warren Sloat, A Battle for the Soul of New York: Tammany Hall, Police Corruption, Vice and Reverend Charles Parkhurst's Crusade Againist Them,1892-1895 (2002) review
^Mike Wallace, Greater Gotham: A history of New York City from 1898 to 1919 (Oxford U, 2017), pp 615-618
^Janet Nyberg Paraschos, 'Saratoga Springs' American Preservation (1978) 2#1 pp 59-72.
^See 'Horse Racing' Encyclopedia Of Cleveland History
^ See 'Mayfield Rd. MobEncyclopedia Of Cleveland History
^'Harvard Club' Encyclopedia Of Cleveland Historyonline
^ See 'Ness, Eliot' Encyclopedia Of Cleveland History
^'Top 5 online slots for 2016'. gamblinginfo.com. Archived from the original on 2011-06-12. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
^'Gambling History, from the beginning'. Gambling Info. Archived from the original on 2011-06-12. Retrieved 2011-06-23.
^Nicholas Pileggi, Casino: The Rise and Fall of the Mob in Las Vegas (2001).
^Johansen, Bruce. The Praeger Handbook on Contemporary Issues in Native America, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2007.
^Zimmerman, Joseph Francis (2004). Interstate economic relations. p. 164. ISBN9780791461594.
^ ^a^bLiptak, Adam; Draper, Kevin (May 14, 2018). 'Supreme Court Ruling Favors Sports Betting'. New York Times.
^Sally Gainsbury (2012). Internet Gambling: Current Research Findings and Implications. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 2. ISBN9781461433897.

External links[edit]

American Gaming Association Gaming industry association
National Indian Gaming Association Indian gaming industry association

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_gambling_in_the_United_States&oldid=936078067'

The numbers game, also known as the numbers racket, the Italian lottery, or the daily number, is a form of illegal gambling or illegal lottery played mostly in poor and working class neighborhoods in the United States, wherein a bettor attempts to pick three digits to match those that will be randomly drawn the following day. For many years the 'number' has been the last three digits of 'the handle', the amount race track bettors placed on race day at a major racetrack, published in racing journals and major newspapers in New York.

Gamblers place bets with a bookmaker ('bookie') at a tavern, bar, barber shop, social club, or any other semi-private place that acts as an illegal betting parlor. Runners carry the money and betting slips between the betting parlors and the headquarters, called a numbers bank.

Closely related is policy, known as the policy racket, or the policy game. The name 'policy' is based on the similarity to cheap insurance, which is also a gamble on the future.^[1]

1History
- 1.7New York City

History[edit]

'Policy shops', where bettors choose numbers, operated in the United States prior to 1860.^[2] In 1875, a report of a select committee of the New York State Assembly stated that 'the lowest, meanest, worst form ... [that] gambling takes in the city of New York, is what is known as policy playing.'^[3] It flourished in African American and Italian American communities across the country, though it was played in working classIrish-American and Jewish-American communities, as well. It was known in Cuban-American communities as bolita ('little ball').^{[citation needed]}

Other sources date the origin of Policy, at least in its most well-known form, to 1885 in Chicago. During part of its run from 1868 to 1892, the Louisiana Lottery involved drawing several numbers from 1 to 78, and people wagering would choose their own numbers on which to place a bet. Initially, it instead ran by means of the sale of serially-numbered tickets, and at another point, the numbers drawn ran from 1 to 75.

By the early 20th century, the game was associated with poor and working-class communities, as it could be played for as little as a penny. Also, unlike state lotteries, bookies could extend credit to the bettors and policy winners could avoid paying income tax. Different policy banks would offer different rates, although a payoff of 600 to 1 was typical.^[4] Since the odds of winning were 999:1 against the bettors, the expected profit for racketeers was enormous.^[3]

Boston[edit]

In Boston (as well as elsewhere in the northeast), the game was commonly referred to as the 'ni**er pool', including in the city's newspapers, due to the game's popularity in black neighborhoods.^[5]^[6]^[7] The number was based on the handle from the early races at Suffolk Downs or, if Suffolk was closed, one of the racetracks in New York. The winner could be controlled by manipulating the handle.^[6]

After Jerry Angiulo became head of the Mafia in Boston, in 1950, he established a profit sharing plan whereby for every four numbers one of his runners turned in, they would get one for free. This resulted in the numbers game's taking off in Boston. According to Howie Carr, The Boston American was able to stay in business in part because it published the daily number.^[6]

During the 1950s, Wimpy and Walter Bennett ran a numbers ring in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. The Bennetts' protégé Stephen Flemmi took and collected bets for them.

Around the same time, Buddy McLean began forming a gang in Somerville, Massachusetts to, among other criminal activities, run numbers. This would become the Winter Hill Gang.^[8] By the 1970s, the Winter Hill Gang, then led by Whitey Bulger, moved bookies under its protection away from the numbers game to sports betting, as the state was starting its own lottery, and the National Football League did not allow betting on its games outside of Nevada; thereby Massachusetts could not compete with them. Despite the creation of the state lottery, however, the numbers game's demise in Massachusetts was not immediate, as the state lottery had a lower payout and was taxed.^[6]

Chicago[edit]

In the 1940s, Eddie Jones and his brothers earned more than $180,000 per week in the black community. While in jail for income tax evasion, Jones became acquainted with Sam Giancana, a hit-man for hire among top Italian Mafia figures. Back on the streets, the men became friends. Eddie taught Sam everything he knew about the policy game and how to memorize number combinations, and even hired Sam to operate one of his many lucrative establishments.

Sam made his first fortune through Eddie. Aspiring to become a 'made man', Sam shared his new knowledge of the policy game with the Dons, who were impressed. By then, the Italian Mafia focused their attention on the Jones market in the black community.

Under orders from the Dons, Sam was instructed to remove Jones from his lucrative position and take over. To avoid being murdered by the mob, Jones walked away from his family enterprise.^[9]

Detroit[edit]

A 1941 trial exposed Detroit's extensive numbers operations. Among the policy houses operating were 'Big Four Mutuale' (owned by John Roxborough, boxer Joe Louis's manager), 'Yellow Dog' (owned by Everett Watson), 'Tia Juana', 'Interstate', 'Mexico and Villa' (operated by Louis Weisberg), 'New York', 'Michigan', and others.^[10] Big Four was said in testimony to be doing $800,000 business a year, with profits of up to $6000 a week. Yellow Dog was said to be doing $4,900 daily in business, totaling $1.5 million a year. The grand jury in the trial of 71 defendants charged that 10 policy houses had been paying $600 a month in payoffs equally divided between the chief of police, the head prosecutor and the mayor, with smaller bribes in the $25 to $50 range going to individual police sergeants and lieutenants. Former mayor Richard Reading was said to have received $18,000 in payoffs. Reading, Roxborough, Watson, and several others were convicted on conspiracy charges, with Roxborough receiving a 2¹⁄₂- to 5-year sentence, and Reading sentenced to four to five years.

Cleveland[edit]

Benny Mason, of the 'B&M' policy house, and Buster Mathews of the 'Goldfield' policy house, were the main kingpins of the numbers game in 1930s and 1940s Cleveland. In a 1935 raid on the B&M house on E. 46th St., police found 200 policy writers on hand who had handed in their books and were waiting for the payoff.^[11] In a 1949 arrest, police picked up a 35-year-old woman named Robinson who told them she had been a policy writer for the past month and a half, at $40 a week. She was writing slips for the Old Kentucky, Goldfield and Last Chance games, and her top sheet showed that she had written $500 in business on that day (which happened to be Good Friday) alone.^[12]

By the 1950s, there were 8 rival numbers games operating in black sections of Cleveland, including 'California Gold', 'Mound Bayou' and 'T. & O.' The winning three-digit number from 000 to 999 was determined by the closing stock market results in the evening papers, with one digit each being taken from the totals for advances, declines, and unchanged. Bets of up to $2 would be placed with hundreds of numbers writers around the city, who would keep 25% of the money bet as their fee. In the mid-afternoon a runner (locally known as the pickup man or woman) would rendezvous with the writers to collect the policy slips and cash, which would be taken to a central location and totaled on adding machines prior to determining the winners. The runners kept 10% of the money bet as their fee. 65 cents on every dollar bet would be delivered to the 'clearinghouse' parlors, which calculated the winners and paid off at 500 to 1 odds, keeping 15 cents on the dollar, on an average day when no 'hot' number hit, for themselves. In the evening the runner would make the rounds again to deliver the cash winnings to those writers whose customers had hit the winning number, and winners would be paid. A number of bars, private clubs and taverns around town, including the 'Tia Juana', served as centers of the action where bettors and writers would congregate and wait for the winners to be announced.

After a 1955 car bombing in which the girlfriend of Arthur 'Little Brother' Drake was killed, police conducted a mass roundup of 28 numbers operators and runners on the east side, including Drake, Geech Bell, Don King, Edward Keeling, Dan Boone, Thomas Turk, and others.^[13] The following year Russian gangster Shon Birns tried to keep the peace by setting up a 5-member syndicate of the leading black operators in Cleveland including Don King, Virgil Ogletree, Boone and Keeling to control the game, insure payouts when 'hot' numbers which had been overbet hit for large scores, and limit the payoff odds to 500 to 1; Birns also attempted to introduce a new method of determining the winning number. The game was wildly popular; in the 1950s one Cleveland numbers house was said to clear $20,000 a day.^[14]

Atlanta[edit]

In Atlanta the game was known as 'playing the bug.' In 1936 The Atlanta Constitution wrote: 'Both in the business section and the residential areas, one or more solicitors make their daily morning rounds into every office and every home. Then, in the afternoons, the 'pay-off' men make their rounds over the same routes. Their patrons include every class of Atlanta citizens—professional men, businessmen, housewives, and even children.'^[15] 'The bug' was believed by police to be grossing citywide as much as $30,000 in bets a day at its height in 1937-1938. During a police crackdown in 1943, authorities claimed that the game was in decline and 'they are lucky if they bank as much as $12,000 to $15,000 a day,' after a raid on an alleged headquarters on Parsons Street.^[16] In 1944, eight bug rings were believed to be operating in the city, collectively handling a total of $15,000 to $20,000 in bets on an average day. Writers took out a 25% commission before passing on the rest of the day's receipts to the house.^[17]Bug writers employed a number of schemes to foil police: in 1936 police observed writers carrying the day's bet slips gathering under the bridge which passes over the railroad tracks at Nelson St. As lottery squad officers watched, a pick-up car pulled up and stopped on the bridge overhead, the writers threw their paper sacks full of bet slips up to it, and the car sped off.^[18] In 1937 indictments were brought against the alleged 'big shots' of the bug game in Atlanta, including Bob Hogg, the Hall brothers (Albert and Leonard), Flem King, Willie Carter, Walter Cutcliffe, Glenn House, and Henry F. Shorter.^[19] Henry Shorter was a barber who ran the game out of his barber shop. In 1944, Shorter was one of a select group of 20 African-American community leaders who were turned away from the polls when they attempted to vote in the Democratic primary; the Rev. M.L. King, father of Martin Luther King Jr., was among the others who participated in this protest.^[20]

New York Gambling News

Bahamas[edit]

How To Report Illegal Gambling In New York

Number games are popular in many Bahamian communities. While gambling in casinos is legal for tourists visiting the Bahamas, it is forbidden for Bahamian residents. There is also no legalized lottery for Bahamian nationals. As a result, the predominant form of gambling among residents is playing the Numbers.^[21]

New York City[edit]

The Italian lottery was operated as a racket for the American Mafia, originally in Italian-American neighborhoods such as Little Italy, Manhattan and Italian Harlem by mobsters of the Morello crime family. A young Joseph Bonanno, future boss of the Bonanno crime family, expanded the Italian lottery operation to all of Brooklyn and invested the profits in many legitimate businesses.^[22] In the 1930s, Vito Genovese, crime boss of the Genovese crime family, ruled the Italian lottery in New York and New Jersey, bringing in over $1 million per year, owned four Greenwich Village night clubs, a dog track in Virginia, and other legitimate businesses.^[23]

Dutch Schultz is said to have rigged this system, thanks to an idea from Otto Berman, by betting heavily on certain races to change the Win, Place and Show numbers that determine the winning lottery number. This allegedly added ten percent to the Mob take.^[24]

Harlem[edit]

Francis A. J. Ianni, in his book Black Mafia: Ethnic Succession in Organized Crime writes: 'By 1925 there were thirty black policy banks in Harlem, several of them large enough to collect bets in an area of twenty city blocks and across three or four avenues.' By 1931, big time numbers operators in Harlem included James Warner, Stephanie St. Clair ('Madame Queen'), Casper Holstein, Ellsworth 'Bumpy' Johnson, Wilfred Brunder, Jose Miro, Joseph Ison, Masjoe Ison and Simeon Francis.^[25] The game survived despite periodic police crackdowns.^[26]

Legal lotteries[edit]

Today, many state lotteries offer similar 'daily numbers' games, typically relying on mechanical devices to draw the number. The state's rake is typically 50% rather than the 20–40% of the numbers game. The New York Lottery and Pennsylvania Lottery even use the names 'Numbers' and 'Daily Number' respectively. Despite the existence of legal alternatives, some gamblers still prefer to play with a bookie for a number of reasons. Among them are the ability to bet on credit, better payoffs, the convenience of calling in one's bet on the telephone, the ability to play if under the legal age, and the avoidance of government taxes.

Gameplay[edit]

One of the problems of the early game was to find a way to draw a random number. Initially, winning numbers were set by the daily outcome of a random drawing of numbered balls, or by spinning a 'policy wheel', at the headquarters of the local numbers ring. The daily outcomes were publicized by being posted after the draw at the headquarters, and were often 'fixed'. The existence of rigged games, used to cheat players and drive competitors out of business, as well as the practical obstacles to holding a drawing for a lottery that is illegal, later led to the use of widely-published unpredictable numbers such as the last three numbers in the published daily balance of the United States Treasury, or the middle three digits of the number of shares traded that day on the New York Stock Exchange.^[27]

This is what led to the change from the game of policy, where 12 or 13 numbers from 1 to 78 were drawn, and players bet on combinations of four or fewer of them, to the 'numbers game' where players chose a three-digit number to bet on.

The use of a central, independently-chosen number allowed for gamblers from a larger area to engage in the same game and it made larger wins possible. It also gave customers confidence in the fairness of the games, which could still generate vast profits even if run honestly as they paid out only around $600 for every $1000 wagered.^[27]

When the Treasury began rounding off the balance, many bookies began to use the 'mutuel' number. This consisted of the last dollar digit of the daily total handle of the Win, Place and Show bets at a local race track, read from top to bottom. For example, if the daily handle (takings at the racetrack) was:

Win $1004.25
Place $583.56
Show $27.61

then the daily number was 437.By 1936, 'The Bug' had spread to cities such as Atlanta where the winning number was determined by the last digit of that day's New York bond sales.^[28]

Policy dealers[edit]

Albert J. Adams (1845–1906), operator of policy game in New York City in the 1900s^[29]
Ken Eto (1919–2004), operator of policy game in Chicago
Giosue Gallucci (1865–1915), operator of Italian policy game in Italian Harlem in the 1910s, known as the King of Little Italy
Don King (born 1931), operator of a policy game in Cleveland before achieving fame as a boxing promoter
Peter H. Matthews, operator of policy game in New York City in the 1900s
Sai Wing Mock (1879–1941), operator of policy game in Chinatown, New York in the 1900s
Joseph Vincent Moriarty, operator of numbers game in Hudson County, New Jersey in the 1950s
Stephanie St. Clair (1886–1969), known as 'Madame Queen', operator of policy game in Harlem, in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Policy reformers[edit]

Lexow Committee, uncovered illegal gambling in New York City

Timeline[edit]

1860 Private lotteries flourish in large cities
1894 Lexow Committee investigates^[30]
1901 Albert J. Adams arrested in New York City
1906 Albert J. Adams takes his own life^[29]
1916 Peter H. Matthews dies in prison
1964 New Hampshire starts the first modern US lottery

Illegal Gambling Sites

In popular culture[edit]

Old Policy Wheel is a 1935 painting by Walter Ellison, depicting a scene in a Chicago basement betting parlor.^[31]
In the 1946 film noirThe Killers, the Swede (Burt Lancaster) moves, fatally, from boxing to crime. The first criminal activity he is involved in is 'the numbers racket.'
The 1948 film noirForce of Evil revolves around the numbers racket, with the plot hinging upon the workings of policy banks. The film tells of a gangster who is trying to take over all the banks in New York City by rigging the mutuel numbers to come up 776 on Independence Day. Since everybody plays those numbers for the Fourth of July, the banks will go bankrupt filling the policies.
In the 1972 film The Godfather, Sonny Corleone and members of the Corleone family discuss the fact that black gangs have taken over their 'policy banks' due to the turmoil caused by the gang wars between the Corleones and other New York Mafia families.
In the 1972 film Shaft's Big Score!, John Shaft investigates the death of his friend, Cal Asby and discovers that while Asby appeared to be a beloved community member, he was also tied to a local numbers racket. A scene shows a character going door to door in a housing project, collecting money and handing out numbered slips. Missing money from this local numbers game is central to the film.
In the 1978 film adaptation of The Wiz the Good Witch Of The North, Miss One, is a number runner, and her entire personality, way of speaking, and wardrobe is built around numbers.
In the 1990 film Goodfellas, one of young Henry Hill's first jobs working for the Mob is as a numbers runner.
A subplot of the August Wilson 1990 play Two Trains Running involves several characters placing numbers bets with a bookie character Wolf. One character, Sterling, has the goal of marrying one of the other characters, Risa, should the number she gave him win.
The Spike Lee biographic film Malcolm X portrays some of the revolutionary black leader Malcolm X's early days in Harlem, where he worked as a numbers runner for a man named 'West Indian Archie.'
The numbers racket is the subject of the 1936 film Exclusive Story and is also portrayed in the 1997 film Hoodlum.
In the 1999 film Liberty Heights, Joe Mantegna's character runs numbers game.

References[edit]

^Sifakis, Carl (2005). The Mafia Encyclopedia. Facts on File. p. 336.
^Thompson, Nathan. Kings: The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings and Numbers Racketeers, An Informal History.
^ ^a^bCostello, Augustine E. (1885). Our Police Protectors: History of the New York Police from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. New York: self-published. Archived from the original on June 4, 2008. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
^'600 to 1 Odds Lure Harlem to Gambling Orgy. Eager Men, Women and Children Bet Daily on Clearing House Numbers'. Baltimore Afro-American. October 27, 1922. p. 1.
^O'Brien, Liam. You Bet!: An A-Z of Poker, Casinos and Lotteries. Liam O'Brien. ISBN978-1-78301-291-6.
^ ^a^b^c^dCarr, Howie (2011). Hitman: The Untold Story of Johnny Martorano. New York: Forge Books. ISBN978-0-7653-6531-6.
^Carr, Howie (2012). Hard Knocks. New York: Forge Books. ISBN978-0-7653-6532-3.
^Songini, Marc (2014). Boston Mob: The Rise and Fall of the New England Mob and Its Most Notorious Killer. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN978-0-312-37363-4.
^LTV021. (2014, December, 26). Momo: The Sam Giancana Story (2014) - USA (Documentary) - Full HD [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgvDMwtJZTk
^'Detroit Racket Probe Witness Names Police as Takers', Cleveland Call and Post, Nov. 15, 1941, p. 11-B.
^'Benny Mason Follows Policy Money to Police Station to Count It', Cleveland Call and Post, March 16, 1935, p. 1.
^'In Good Friday Raid, Vice-Busters Strike Again', Cleveland Call and Post, April 23, 1949, p. 5.
^'No Clues in Bomb Death: Mass Roundup of Racketeers is Big Washout', Cleveland Call and Post, Sept. 17, 1955, pg. 1.
^Priscilla Zotti, . Injustice for All (Peter Lang, 2005) pp 1-8.
^'Smashing of 'Bug' Racket Up to Public, Says Boykin,' Atlanta Constitution, December 18, 1936, p. 1.
^'Bug Racket at Low Ebb in Atlanta', Atlanta Constitution, April 8, 1943, p. 12.
^'$3,000 Tickets, 5 Men Seized in Lottery Raid,' Atlanta Constitution, June 30, 1944, p. 1.
^'Bug' Men Driven to Cover of Night,' Atlanta Constitution, February 18, 1936, p. 1.
^'Ten Reputed 'Big Shots' Named in Bills Drawn for Jury in Lottery Quiz: Hogg, Cutcliffe, House and Halls Reported in List,' Atlanta Constitution, Oct. 1, 1937, p. 1.
^St. John, M.L. 'Token Attempt to Vote Made by Negroes Here,' Atlanta Constitution, July 5, 1944, p. 3.
^'Gambling In The Bahamas | The Tribune'. Tribune242.com. 2012-08-08. Retrieved 2016-02-20.
^'Joseph Bonanno, 97; Infamous Mobster'. Los Angeles Times. May 12, 2002.
^Fred J. Cook (1966). 'The secret rulers: criminal syndicates and how they control the U.S. underworld'. Duell, Sloan & Pearce.
^Sifakis, pp.38-9
^Harlem Gangs: The Numbers Game from Crime Library
^Hess, Margaret (February 25, 1934). 'Game the Police Are Seeking to Curb Draws Victims From the City's Poor'. New York Times. Retrieved 2008-07-26. The police offensive recently launched against the policy game has resulted in numerous arrests and the raiding of a 'bank' in which three sacks of 'slips' were discovered. Central depots in Harlem have also been closed and many collectors and bankers driven to cover.
^ ^a^bKevin Cook (3 March 2014). Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 68. ISBN978-0-393-23928-7.
^Associated Press, February 12, 1936
^ ^a^b''Al' Adams a Suicide, Following Misfortunes; Broken By Ill-health and Money Losses, He Shoots Himself. Sage & Co. Sank $2,000,000. He Also Felt Deeply The Disgrace Of Prison Sentence. Great Fortune Made In Policy Swindle'(PDF). New York Times. October 2, 1906. Retrieved 2008-07-23. 'Al' Adams, known as the 'Policy King,' committed suicide yesterday morning by shooting himself. Members of his family and those in the apartment house who ... Standing before a mirror in his apartment on the fifteenth floor of the Ansonia apartment hotel, 'Al' Adams, known as the 'Policy King,' committed suicide ...
^'Paid $500 To Schmittberger'. New York Times. October 12, 1894. Retrieved 2008-07-26. Forget Says This Tribute Went To The Police Captain. The Agent Of The French Line Tells The Lexow Committee Of The Money Transaction. Complete Exposure Of The Policy Business In This City. A List Of 600 Places Where The Gambling Was Conducted. Only One Precinct Free From The Evil.
^'Walter Ellison | Artists | Modernism in the New City: Chicago Artists, 1920-1950'. Chicagomodern.org. Retrieved 2016-02-20.

Colonial[edit]

Early national trends[edit]

Frontier[edit]

What States Is Gambling Illegal

Late 19th century[edit]

Chicago[edit]

20th century[edit]

Numbers racket[edit]

Reformers[edit]

Localities[edit]

New York City[edit]

Saratoga Springs[edit]

Cleveland[edit]

Legalization in states[edit]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

Further reading[edit]

State and local[edit]

Lotteries[edit]

External links[edit]

History[edit]

Boston[edit]

Chicago[edit]

Detroit[edit]

Cleveland[edit]

Atlanta[edit]

New York Gambling News

Bahamas[edit]

How To Report Illegal Gambling In New York

New York City[edit]

Harlem[edit]

Legal lotteries[edit]

Gameplay[edit]

Policy dealers[edit]

Policy reformers[edit]

Timeline[edit]

Illegal Gambling Sites

In popular culture[edit]

See also[edit]

Gambling In New York State

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Report Illegal Gambling In Florida