"Da Numbaz"

“Da Numbaz”….


Pay close attention to the picture above, If you recognize this book or know what it is you have been exposed to “Da Numbaz”. For those of you who do not know let me break it down for ya.

"Da Numbaz"- A very well organized ring of underground gambling that is known predominately in urban dwellings. There are many myths about who actually controls “Da Numbaz” but you can bet your last dollar that it aint the NY State Lotto.

It works like this, usually two times a day a set of 3 numbers will be released ( I often wondered how the numbers stayed the same in all the different boroughs. The numbers are announced one by one probably every hour or so.
Growing up in “The REAL Harlem” this was something that you could count on everyday. Interestingly enough you could not just play the “Numbaz” anywhere, we had local grocery stores or “Bodegas” and once you ordered your ham and cheese hero you would pull out that little piece of carbon paper (pink, yellow & white) that your mama had given you to pass to “Papi” at the store (wonders why all the Puerto Rican men who worked in Bodega’s are named Papi?) along with the $20 that your mama folded up and dared you to lose.
You got the yellow copy back and you would run home to wait and see if your mama or daddy “HIT” cuz if they did you knew you were looking at a new pair of some kind of sneaker or at least a Happy Meal. My mama always knew food was the way to my heart.

Now here is where “Da Numbaz” gets interesting, there were hundreds of ways to select numbers to bet on. Many people used their addresses, children’s birthdays, date of a loved ones death and there were all sorts of books to analyze these things and while hanging out with “Father Fox” aka my daddy on Sunday I happened to run across the book shown above. As a child if I ever had a dream I would tell my parents and one of them was bound to run to the book shown above and then run out of the door to go play my dream. Now I don’t know if they were disappointed with me when they did not hit but I know there were times they were not pleased with the outcome.

When I tell people that I don’t gamble they never understand why, well today I will share that with u.

19 years ago when I was about 8 years old I went with my mother to the “Numba Hole” all the guys there knew my family and they would give me a dollar or two and some candy or chips (can yall guess I was a hungry kid?) One day I asked my mother to play the number “5” with a dollar I had just received, I selected 5 because that is the day of my birth. My mother played my innocent dollar and then proceeded to drop some heavy dollars on a few different numbers.
Ok so you know where this is going. I “HIT” and won $10 while my mama lost $50, she gave me my cash but was quiet the rest of the day. I’m not sure if she was mad at me or mad at herself for gambling I’m guessing back then $50 was a lot of green to lose in one shot. All I know is the following morning I gave my mother back the $10 and asked that she never take me back to “The Numba Hole” ever again and she never did, and to this day I don’t gamble or play “Da Numbaz”.

Now what made this so interesting is the fact that I found out my Dad still plays them and I could not help but wonder…”Is that where my college money went”????

In tribute to my past (and apparently my present) we are gonna play “Da Numbas” today. At three periods throughout the day I’m going to post a number, yall tell me about your dreams last night and post three (3) numbers you want to play!

If you win you get to come back tomorrow LOL!

Good Luck!

See you tomorrow for WHY Wednesday!
Oh and the first number is: 9
The second number is: 0
The last number is: 5 (for those of you who know what it is don't forget it!)