Question of the Day - 30 January 2018

It’s impossible to know how many gamblers use lucky numbers. Readers can weigh in on this in the comment boxes. (Do you play lucky numbers? At what games do you use them?) We’ll also add the question to our file of poll possibilities.

We can, however, take a stab at answering the second question, about how people might use their lucky numbers in a casino.

But first, an interesting little bit of recent history about lucky numbers. Known as “the lottery’s illegitimate offspring,” the numbers racket was the largest and cheapest form of gambling in the U.S. throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s. It’s still played today, both legally in various numbers games offered by state lotteries and illegally with bookies (where people can bet on credit, avoid taxes, play if underage, and earn better payoffs).

The numbers racket originated as a way to “insure” a particular lottery number — in other words, the player bet that a single number out of his or her lottery selection would be drawn. The bet was also known as an “insurance policy,” and “policy” became shorthand for the wager. It quickly divorced itself from the lottery and allowed people who couldn’t afford a full ticket, or even a piece of one, to place bets on numbers. For as little as a penny, players could pick a number between 1 and 999; if it hit, the payoff was 600-1 (obviously, a big edge for the house).

As David Clary writes in his excellent new book Gangsters to Governors: The New Bosses of Gambling in America, “Few gamblers in history were more conscious of their subconscious than numbers players.” They’re mostly forgotten today, but “dream books” for policy players were huge bestsellers in their day; millions of copies were sold between the 1830s and 1880s and well into the 20^th century, they made publishing companies rich.

A huge compendium of the numerical significance of dreams, titled The Wheel of Fortune, was chained to the wall of every policy shop in the country; some operators even charged patrons a penny or two to consult it. Such popular dream books as Old Aunt Dinah’s, The Gypsy Witch’s, Policy Pete’s, and Lucky Numbers were illustrated, in Clary’s words, “… with apocryphal depictions of  exotic fortune tellers and soothsayers from Africa and the Orient … A vision of a tractor meant 647 was the most suitable number to play, the reliable presence of a sheep translated to 156." Other details from dreams included "a dead horse (419), a dog fight (724), and a house on fire (791)."

Of course, many cultures have strong and deep-seated beliefs about certain numbers. In ours, 7 is lucky, 13 is unlucky, and 23 is mystical. Chinese like 6, 8, and 9.

Beyond social conventions and convictions, people the world over also take a more personal approach to lucky numbers: ages, birthdays, anniversaries, addresses, dates, the most and least common winning lottery numbers, patterns on playing slips, even the amount of losses from gambling!

In casinos specifically, roulette and keno are the main games that lend themselves to lucky-number play.

In keno, you can not only play your lucky numbers directly from 1 to 80, you can also total them (for example, lucky numbers of 3 plus 7 plus 23 add up to 33) and pick a total that represents your lucky number (you play 7 numbers). Betting-slip patterns are also popular at keno.

In roulette, you can bet your lucky number from 1 to 36 straight up (one at a time), make a split bet (if your lucky number is 23, you bet the 23 and 24), a street bet (22, 23, 24), and an odd and high bet.  

Finally, we should state the obvious, that no lucky-number strategy will beat these games. Still, playing your lucky numbers — no different than resorting to any manner of superstitious behavior — tends to make gamblers, especially the more credulous among them, feel like they’re a bit more in control of the outcome.

And, it must be said, that when a lucky number does pay off, it’s satisfying on many more levels than winning from just a random pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey selection.