Getting to Know Bingo

The majority of bingo players come from low-income groups and over 80 percent are women. A typical bingo addict has been defined: a working class wife spending most of her free time in the bingo palaces.

With the players sitting sedately in rows, studying their cards, bingo is hardly exciting, and perhaps the majority of players are attracted as much by the gambling element.

The American policy or numbers game has a turnover greater even than bingo. Basically, the gambler lets on a 3-digit number between 000 and 999. He makes his bet with an agent of a 'numbers' know who their local agents are.

Bets are made by writing a number and stake on a pad, e.g. 827- $1. Two carbons are made: the bettor has one slip, the agent a second and the third is forwarded by runner to the bank.

In the late 1920s, when the game began to be popular, the last three figures of the daily Federal Reserve Clearing House report were used. This allowed a daily game and eliminated cheating, as these numbers could not be manipulated and were published in the newspapers .

Nowadays the official payoff prices at a pre-selected race track are often used to determine winners. The odds paid to bettors on the correct number vary according to the bank: it might be 550-1, from which 10 percent will be deducted for the runner's commission, so the winner will get back about half what he would expect were he paid out at the true odds.

All numbers have a 999-1 chance of wining, but some numbers (like 777 for instance) are far more popular with backers than others.

To insure against heavy losses, banks will pay shorter odds on these numbers. They are called 'cut numbers', and the bank may pay only 400-1 on them.

Some banks might list 200 or so cut numbers, thus increasing their own profits nicely. Bets other than those on straight numbers are possible, and are invented and discarded as the bank finds it necessary to inspire business.

An example is the box number. A box drawn around the number 345, say, will win if the winning number is any combination of those three digits: 345, 354, 435, 453, 534, 543.

It is really a bet on six numbers, and the odds will be 1/6 of those paid on a single number: i00-1 or just below.

In the 1930s, the numbers game was taken over and organized by gangsters, who did not always bother to pay winners; it became popularly known as the 'numbers racket'.

Dutch Schultz, a New York mobster, was an early numbers-racket king, but like one or two others, he was shot dead by an unknown well-wisher.