Entry · catalog no. 7303
the numbers
/ /ðə ˈnʌm.bərz/ /thuh NUM-berz
noun · Harlem / Chicago, urban North · 1920s
✓ Verified
1.
The informal daily lottery run in and for Black neighborhoods: you bet a few cents on a three-digit number and a runner collected the slips. Called the numbers in New York and policy in Chicago. For decades it was Black-owned finance where banks would not lend.
“He hit the numbers for a dollar straight and paid rent for a year.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem, 1920s. The numbers game grew into a Black-run economy: bankers like Madame Stephanie St. Clair employed thousands of runners and bankrolled Black businesses shut out of white credit. In Chicago the same game was policy, and its policy kings were among the wealthiest Black men in the city — until white organized crime and, later, state lotteries moved in.
1920s
Numbers game takes hold in Harlem
1930s
Policy kings and numbers bankers fund Black business
1970s
State lotteries displace the community game
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
Harlem / Chicago, urban North · 1920s
Spoken by
Black urban communities, North and South
$THENUMThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady106 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
40/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1920
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
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The Bronx, NY
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Philadelphia, PA
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Citations & Sources
■
Shane White et al., Playing the Numbers (Harvard UP) — book · 2010
book
■
+ Cite a sourceStephanie St. Clair, Harlem numbers banker — historical record
history
See also