The Numbers Game
With the end of Prohibition, Dutch Schultz needed to find new sources of income. His answer came with Otto "Abbadabba" Berman and the Harlem numbers racket. The numbers racket, the forerunner of "Pick 3" lotteries, required players to choose three numbers, which were then derived from the last number before the decimal in the handle at the racetrack. Berman was a middle-aged accountant and math whiz who let Schultz fix this racket. In a matter of seconds, Berman could mentally calculate the minimum amount of money Schultz needed to bet at the track at the last minute in order to alter the odds. This strategy ensured that Schultz always controlled which numbers won, guaranteeing a larger number of losers in Harlem and a multimillion-dollar-a-month tax-free income for Schultz. Berman was reportedly paid $10,000 a week for his valued insight.
Read more about this topic: Dutch Schultz
Famous quotes containing the words numbers and/or game:
“Old age equalizes—we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time. When we are young we act as if we were the first young people in the world.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“That the world is a divine game and beyond good and evil:Min this the Vedanta philosophy and Heraclitus are my predecessors.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)