The numbers were a sprawling, black-run business for decades.

Reply #18

Kola — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 22:31:20 GMT

I agree Blackapple that the number 6 has its own particular significance. To piggy-back on your examples, here's one that directly relates to the Pick 3.

Given a circle on a flat sheet of paper, how many other circles of equal size and shape can you fit around the perimeter? The answer is 6. And 6, not coincidentally, is the most creative number of ways a Pick 3 number can be expressed. Out of 220 box combinations, 210 of them can be expressed in 6 ways: for example 623 can also be expressed... [ More ]

Reply #17

Kola — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 17:56:18 GMT

I certainly will check it out! Thanks

Reply #16

str8ca$hhomie — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 17:47:56 GMT

Check out the Lottery Post Archives for posts by a guy who went by the LP name: Splinter-Cell . He was the best I ever saw in coming close to or perhaps I should say dead on to his next day's play . He had no competition

Reply #15

Kola — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 15:08:43 GMT

Why am I not surprised lol!?

Its actually inspiring, and hope to be counted among them as the years fly by and I continue to work on my next day's play as well. Actually next draw's play . We'll see what happens... In the meantime, we keep grindin'.

Good luck on your search for how they did it str8ca$hhomie! Its not a futile one.

Reply #14

str8ca$hhomie — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 12:57:14 GMT

I've heard stories that the old-timers had developed a formula to determine as they used to call it next day's play. Still searching mathematically speaking as to how they did it.

Reply #13

GiveFive — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 11:35:24 GMT

In the movie The Godfather , Sonny Corleone has a line where he talks about the policy banks up in Harlem . Until I read your post I had no idea of what Sonny was talking about. Thanks. G5

Reply #12

Kola — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 06:36:09 GMT

Just looked her up. Wow - she was quite a lady.

Thanks str8ca$hhomie

Reply #11

Kola — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 06:20:54 GMT

I didn't know what you were talking about Coin Toss and was going to ask you to please unpack what you meant by Policy , but I just looked up your interesting reference on Wikipedia: Numbers Game

It said, Policy was a popular game, particularly in African-American communities, in cities across the United States such as Chicago and New York City (Harlem specifically). The name policy is based on the similarity to cheap insurance, which is also a gamble on the future .

Thanks Coin Toss... [ More ]

Reply #10

Kola — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 05:27:23 GMT

I sometimes leave the corner store in doubt after hearing some old-timer swearing with certainty that the winning number will come out that afternoon from the small set he's asking the cashier to punch-in, while the numbers I chose don't remotely resemble anything that old-timer said. Nah - he can't be right, I say to myself, because I just spent some time on some deep new-school analysis for this draw, lol.

An hour later, draw comes out, I just have to shake my head and laugh my ass off. O... [ More ]

Reply #9

Cashier$ — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 15:22:28 GMT

Would appreciate it if you could tell me the name of the book. Definitely want to track down Playing the Numbers. Thanka

Reply #8

Cashier$ — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 15:15:40 GMT

Thank you! Going to try to track down the movie and the book.

Reply #7

str8ca$hhomie — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 13:41:19 GMT

How does Stephanie St. Clair (Harlem's Numbers Queen) fit into this Black invention story

Reply #6

Coin Toss — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 02:41:19 GMT

In many places that game was called 'policy'.

Reply #5

Lotterologist — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 22:43:43 GMT

Deep...I didn't know that

Reply #4

PstvEnrgy — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 05:43:59 GMT

As with everything they want in on it...Greed!!!

Thanks for posting B.A. I tell people I know about this and they be so shocked but oh how I wish things were like they used to be with the street numbers

Reply #3

Blackapple — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 05:31:41 GMT

Philo of Alexandria (fl. early first c. CE), a Jewish writer and political leader who was called a Pythagorean in antiquity,

he argues for the intellectual coherence, even superiority, of Moses account of the creation. Near the beginning of the treatise Philo explains why God is said to have created the world in six days. It is not as if God, who conceived and executed everything all at once, needed the extra time. Rather, in those six days God supplied order and rank to created beings.... [ More ]

Reply #2

Blackapple — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 04:24:06 GMT

My Grandmother played the street number in Philly and loved playing it.

It literally was a way of life.

Better odds and tax-free.

It was a fascinating community of hope and dreams.

Reply #1

Kola — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 04:12:42 GMT

As someone who loves the game, because of the challenge it presents, I'm a tad embarrassed to say I had no knowledge of the Pick 3 game's history.

Thanks Blackapple

The numbers were a sprawling, black-run business for decades.

Blackapple — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 03:41:02 GMT

In the early 1920s, Casper Holstein, a black man from the Danish West Indies who worked as a porter for a Fifth Avenue store, liked to study the Clearing House totals published in a year s worth of newspapers he d saved. The Clearing House was an operation that managed the exchanges of money among New York City banks on a daily basis. It occurred to Holstein that the numbers printed were different every day.

According to the 2010 book Playing the Numbers, Holstein came up with an ingenious