4 ms·

I had to look this up, because the article doesn't really explain it very well (maybe it's common knowledge, but not to me): it seems the numbers "drawn" were u

by Udo 7y ago

I had to look this up, because the article doesn't really explain it very well (maybe it's common knowledge, but not to me): it seems the numbers "drawn" were usually taken from a publicly verifiable source of randomness. In many cases that was apparently the last three digits of the number of bettors who participated at major race tracks that day, and that number was widely published. In that regard it seems a pretty well tamper-resistant game.

turk73 7y ago
From my own experiences in NY, it was normally the first three numbers of the winning horses at a particular race at a particular track. It varied depending on whose numbers game you were talking about. I had an uncle who was involved with it. He was a money collector, among other things. Yes, it was run by the mob. No, I was not a participant. Yes, these where Italian immigrants. As far as "illegal" goes, yes numbers games were and are illegal. Nobody cared because the cops got paid off. It's a big part of what made NY what it is. It was so successful that most every state now has a lottery system. The odds of winning in state lotteries are, well, you already know what they are. State lotteries are total rip off designed to fleece the public. State lotteries exist because the pols realized they could make bazillions of dollars running numbers on a large scale and they could chase the competition away, too. So, in a sense, numbers games became legal, but controlled by the usual suspects.
- brlewis 7y ago
  Many people call the lottery a "Stupidity Tax". My dad calls it a "Desperation Tax", which I tend to agree with. I don't think states should have them.
  - turk73 7y ago
    North Carolina held out against having a state lottery for a very long time. The corrupt pols eventually won. The money supposedly goes to education. In reality, it goes into the general fund. That is of note because unlike other states where I have lived, North Carolina seems to rake in a lot of money and little to no overt signs of where the money goes. I live in a different state now and I think I can tell that the tax dollars here aren't being stolen to such a high degree. NC had all kinds of taxes but I had a tough time seeing where any of that money actually went. Living in NY, you knew it was all corrupt unions and such, so you never had to wonder.
  - snarf21 7y ago
    Maybe not but if the state doesn't have them, they will play underground ones. The state ones are guaranteed to pay with low likelihood of fraud. The underground ones have no such promise. I understand that you wish poor people wouldn't gamble but they tend to so given that they will, what is the better solution? State run or underground?
    - brlewis 7y ago
      For a lot of the people who play there's little practical difference between fraud and fine print. There's also a conflict of interest. The state is responsible for math education while having an interest in people not doing the math.
  - C1sc0cat 7y ago
    Depends on the Pot odds - with the Big UK and Euro lotteries if there are enough rollovers it does become a sensible bet. I normally get a couple of tickets when the Euro lottery gets large - just for fun.
    - brlewis 7y ago
      The math behind "sensible bet" relies on the period of time between winnings being shorter than your lifetime. Unless you're buying a huge number of tickets, even the big jackpots aren't worth playing, except just for fun. Just for fun, you could take the money you'd spend on a lottery ticket and hand it to the next person you see, just to see how they react.
      - vkou 7y ago
        Ah, but even if the net EV is negative, it still makes sense to part with a bit of money that you won't care about, for a miniscule chance of receiving a life-changing amount of money. If you're not just barely scraping together, dropping $25 on a negative EV lottery is not going to make one whit of difference to your finances. But it might change your life. Dropping $25,000 on a positive EV lottery, on the other hand, is an incredibly dumb move. Since most poor people will, in fact, miss that $25, the lottery is a really bad idea for them. Yet, they play it a lot more than the middle class do...
        NauticalStu 7y ago
        Yeah I don't play the lottery, but I could justify buying a single lottery ticket despite understanding how horrific the odds are. Since you'll almost certainly lose, I think the true value is in the fantasy of what you would do with a staggering amount of money. You could do this without buying a ticket, of course, but it feels more real when you have some skin in the game. Mathematically, your odds are still effectively zero, but mentally there's a big difference between effectively zero and actual zero. Thinking of other consumables in that general price range that provide a short, quick fix of enjoyment (cup of coffee, snack, etc.), $1 for a slightly more vivid dream isn't so crazy to me. Having said all this, I highly doubt it's the mentality of most lottery players.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Interesting I can relate as some who is related by marriage to one of the well know Birmingham based bookies, my Great Great, Great Uncle was scary guy from all reports Watching peaky blinders Is interesting and I a have a cousin who is an actor who is the direct descendant (and could probably do a better brummie accent)
RhysU 7y ago
The source of the randomness is one tampering detail. Who published the size of the payout?
- Verdure 7y ago
  In general, it is not like a lottery with all winners evenly sharing (most of) the proceeds. Instead, there is a fixed payout, typically around 60% payback. So with 3 digits (1000 combinations), the payout would be $600 for $1 bet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_game
- Udo 7y ago
  Wouldn't the payout ratio have been known in advance, when the bet was being placed? From what I understand, the "bankers" would set that ratio in advance and pay out of their pockets if necessary.
dghughes 7y ago
I used to work at a lottery Corp here in Canada. Years ago when speaking with the compliance officer we discussed one of the local draws (the lottery itself is national). The big "bingo machine" used has balls in it that are mixed then one falls out. The balls were locked in a safe between uses. In a locked room. In a building with security and many cameras. Each door had a door swipe with each user having specific security clearance. What I found amusing was the balls were cleaned and weighed (yes I made a joke) before every use. That doesn't even get into the machine itself. I've worked on slot machines so I am sure the bingo machine thing would have security seals on all the EEPROMs. And the EEPROMs would be verified often if not before each draw. Now imagine the rules and procedures of an underground lottery.
- Udo 7y ago
  > Now imagine the rules and procedures of an underground lottery. That's what makes it so fascinating. The bingo ball machine concept you describe requires a lot of trust, that's why so much effort has to go into continuous verification. As resiliency goes, this isn't really a feature. The underground lottery is interesting precisely because it requires comparatively little trust, and the trust it does require is based on reputation and decentralization. For example, as a numbers player, you would be placing your bets with the same banker, one who you know has always paid out in the past, and who has personal ties to you and your neighborhood. The data source and hence the information about whether or not you won is public and hard to fake. What makes numbers an illegal racket probably has more to do with low payout ratios and the fact that it's not linked in with the tax system (also, it's an unregulated chaos of private persons conducting it).
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    The difference is the numbers man works with the loan guy, and when you get in over your head, you get beat up.
- threwawasy1228 7y ago
  Can you go into what a 'security seal' on an EEPROM consists of? It is just a tamper resistant sticker or plastic of some sort?
logfromblammo 7y ago
One of the numbers games in Kenosha used the Powerball multi-state lottery numbers as the source of randomness. Each participant entered a bingo card of N numbers. Each regular number drawn in the regular Powerball results since the start of the game was marked as "hit". When all N of your numbers become "hit", you win. Then you meet a guy behind a bar at 3 AM, backed up by your beefiest brother-in-law, to receive a sack of cash, which was about 60% of what everyone put in at the start of the game. The numbers guy tunes N to match game length to buy-in price and jackpot size, while also discouraging ties that would multiply the risk from the cash handoffs.
dole 7y ago
One major public source for numbers games results was the last 3 digits of the daily Dow Jones Industrial Average. Published in most large US newspapers, difficult to hack or predict.

by Udo 7y ago

turk73 7y ago

From my own experiences in NY, it was normally the first three numbers of the winning horses at a particular race at a particular track. It varied depending on whose numbers game you were talking about. I had an uncle who was involved with it. He was a money collector, among other things. Yes, it was run by the mob. No, I was not a participant. Yes, these where Italian immigrants. As far as "illegal" goes, yes numbers games were and are illegal. Nobody cared because the cops got paid off. It's a big part of what made NY what it is. It was so successful that most every state now has a lottery system. The odds of winning in state lotteries are, well, you already know what they are. State lotteries are total rip off designed to fleece the public. State lotteries exist because the pols realized they could make bazillions of dollars running numbers on a large scale and they could chase the competition away, too. So, in a sense, numbers games became legal, but controlled by the usual suspects.

brlewis 7y ago
Many people call the lottery a "Stupidity Tax". My dad calls it a "Desperation Tax", which I tend to agree with. I don't think states should have them.
- turk73 7y ago
  North Carolina held out against having a state lottery for a very long time. The corrupt pols eventually won. The money supposedly goes to education. In reality, it goes into the general fund. That is of note because unlike other states where I have lived, North Carolina seems to rake in a lot of money and little to no overt signs of where the money goes. I live in a different state now and I think I can tell that the tax dollars here aren't being stolen to such a high degree. NC had all kinds of taxes but I had a tough time seeing where any of that money actually went. Living in NY, you knew it was all corrupt unions and such, so you never had to wonder.
- snarf21 7y ago
  Maybe not but if the state doesn't have them, they will play underground ones. The state ones are guaranteed to pay with low likelihood of fraud. The underground ones have no such promise. I understand that you wish poor people wouldn't gamble but they tend to so given that they will, what is the better solution? State run or underground?
  - brlewis 7y ago
    For a lot of the people who play there's little practical difference between fraud and fine print. There's also a conflict of interest. The state is responsible for math education while having an interest in people not doing the math.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Depends on the Pot odds - with the Big UK and Euro lotteries if there are enough rollovers it does become a sensible bet. I normally get a couple of tickets when the Euro lottery gets large - just for fun.
  - brlewis 7y ago
    The math behind "sensible bet" relies on the period of time between winnings being shorter than your lifetime. Unless you're buying a huge number of tickets, even the big jackpots aren't worth playing, except just for fun. Just for fun, you could take the money you'd spend on a lottery ticket and hand it to the next person you see, just to see how they react.
    - vkou 7y ago
      Ah, but even if the net EV is negative, it still makes sense to part with a bit of money that you won't care about, for a miniscule chance of receiving a life-changing amount of money. If you're not just barely scraping together, dropping $25 on a negative EV lottery is not going to make one whit of difference to your finances. But it might change your life. Dropping $25,000 on a positive EV lottery, on the other hand, is an incredibly dumb move. Since most poor people will, in fact, miss that $25, the lottery is a really bad idea for them. Yet, they play it a lot more than the middle class do...
      - NauticalStu 7y ago
        Yeah I don't play the lottery, but I could justify buying a single lottery ticket despite understanding how horrific the odds are. Since you'll almost certainly lose, I think the true value is in the fantasy of what you would do with a staggering amount of money. You could do this without buying a ticket, of course, but it feels more real when you have some skin in the game. Mathematically, your odds are still effectively zero, but mentally there's a big difference between effectively zero and actual zero. Thinking of other consumables in that general price range that provide a short, quick fix of enjoyment (cup of coffee, snack, etc.), $1 for a slightly more vivid dream isn't so crazy to me. Having said all this, I highly doubt it's the mentality of most lottery players.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
Interesting I can relate as some who is related by marriage to one of the well know Birmingham based bookies, my Great Great, Great Uncle was scary guy from all reports Watching peaky blinders Is interesting and I a have a cousin who is an actor who is the direct descendant (and could probably do a better brummie accent)

RhysU 7y ago

The source of the randomness is one tampering detail. Who published the size of the payout?

Verdure 7y ago
In general, it is not like a lottery with all winners evenly sharing (most of) the proceeds. Instead, there is a fixed payout, typically around 60% payback. So with 3 digits (1000 combinations), the payout would be $600 for $1 bet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_game
Udo 7y ago
Wouldn't the payout ratio have been known in advance, when the bet was being placed? From what I understand, the "bankers" would set that ratio in advance and pay out of their pockets if necessary.

dghughes 7y ago

I used to work at a lottery Corp here in Canada. Years ago when speaking with the compliance officer we discussed one of the local draws (the lottery itself is national). The big "bingo machine" used has balls in it that are mixed then one falls out. The balls were locked in a safe between uses. In a locked room. In a building with security and many cameras. Each door had a door swipe with each user having specific security clearance. What I found amusing was the balls were cleaned and weighed (yes I made a joke) before every use. That doesn't even get into the machine itself. I've worked on slot machines so I am sure the bingo machine thing would have security seals on all the EEPROMs. And the EEPROMs would be verified often if not before each draw. Now imagine the rules and procedures of an underground lottery.

Udo 7y ago
> Now imagine the rules and procedures of an underground lottery. That's what makes it so fascinating. The bingo ball machine concept you describe requires a lot of trust, that's why so much effort has to go into continuous verification. As resiliency goes, this isn't really a feature. The underground lottery is interesting precisely because it requires comparatively little trust, and the trust it does require is based on reputation and decentralization. For example, as a numbers player, you would be placing your bets with the same banker, one who you know has always paid out in the past, and who has personal ties to you and your neighborhood. The data source and hence the information about whether or not you won is public and hard to fake. What makes numbers an illegal racket probably has more to do with low payout ratios and the fact that it's not linked in with the tax system (also, it's an unregulated chaos of private persons conducting it).
- Spooky23 7y ago
  The difference is the numbers man works with the loan guy, and when you get in over your head, you get beat up.
threwawasy1228 7y ago
Can you go into what a 'security seal' on an EEPROM consists of? It is just a tamper resistant sticker or plastic of some sort?

logfromblammo 7y ago

One of the numbers games in Kenosha used the Powerball multi-state lottery numbers as the source of randomness. Each participant entered a bingo card of N numbers. Each regular number drawn in the regular Powerball results since the start of the game was marked as "hit". When all N of your numbers become "hit", you win. Then you meet a guy behind a bar at 3 AM, backed up by your beefiest brother-in-law, to receive a sack of cash, which was about 60% of what everyone put in at the start of the game. The numbers guy tunes N to match game length to buy-in price and jackpot size, while also discouraging ties that would multiply the risk from the cash handoffs.

dole 7y ago

One major public source for numbers games results was the last 3 digits of the daily Dow Jones Industrial Average. Published in most large US newspapers, difficult to hack or predict.