Also, unlike state lotteries, bookies could extend credit to the bettors and policy winners could avoid paying income tax.
[7] 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.
Around the same time, Buddy McLean began forming a gang in Somerville, Massachusetts to, among other criminal activities, run numbers.
[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.
Local aldermen John "Bath house" Coughlin and Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna ran the North Side policy wheels.
[9] Leading up to Prohibition, the policy syndicate in the African American community was run by Henry "Teenan" Jones, whose reach extended into the primarily white neighborhood of Hyde Park.
While in jail for income tax evasion, Jones became acquainted with Sam Giancana, a hit-man for hire among top Italian Mafia figures.
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.
[12] 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.
[13] By the 1950s, there were eight 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.
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.
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.
[14] The following year Jewish 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.
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.
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.
[19] 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.
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.
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 $1,000 wagered.
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.
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.