The illegal "numbers game" has been an under-the-table way of gambling for generations in many South Carolina communities. With the state's legal lottery now in its second year, one might think this underground wagering would be on its way out.

TOM SPAIN/STAFF Pages of notations from a numbers game that was broken up by Charleston police several years ago.

Wanna bet?

Illegal gambling on numbers is huge in South Carolina, maybe bigger than the S.C. Education Lottery, some local law enforcement officers say. The numbers game, which operates out of homes and small shops in inner cities and small towns, is ingrained in those communities and preferred over the legal lottery, investigators say.

"It's still running because it's a cultural thing," said Charleston police Pfc. Tonatte Mitchell.

Now an investigator for Police Team 4, Mitchell, until recently, was an undercover investigator for the vice squad. She said that unlike Education Lottery winners, winners of illegal games don't share their winnings with state or federal tax collectors.

"Numbers is a big, big business in South Carolina, and if you hit the winning number, it's all your money because it's tax free," Mitchell said.

It's also convenient, extremely difficult to investigate and deeply embedded in the culture of many communities. That's bound to irk the illegal game's new competition -- the state of South Carolina.

BIG MONEY

Mitchell said profits from illegal numbers games are unknown, but she thinks the numbers rackets eclipse the S.C. Education Lottery. Some in law enforcement agree on the size, others don't.

There's no objective way to tally it, but anecdotal evidence hints at the size of the numbers game. A North Charleston investigator said a suspected North Charleston numbers kingpin apparently takes in $25,000 to $40,000 daily. Mitchell said several suspected Charleston numbers game kingpins rake in as much as $60,000 a day, year round. It's mostly profit for a tight-knit gambling organization, in which most operatives are kept ignorant of the names of other people in the outfit.

From time to time, police have seized players' winnings and the profits of people who conduct the games. One "number writer," a person who takes down the numbers requested by bettors, divided her profits into 10 bank accounts and 11 IRAs, Mitchell said.

"I know people who have hit up to $90,000," playing the numbers, she said.

Mitchell estimated that about 40,000 people in Charleston County play the numbers, some of them up to twice a day. Players choose sets of three numbers and place bets from 50 cents to $50. Most bets are less than $25. The winning numbers are determined by horse races in New York, she said.

Education Lottery Executive Director Ernie Passailaigue said he has no estimates of the size and scope of illegal betting, but he's not surprised that some police think it's bigger than the legal lottery.

"Illegal gambling is a definite detriment to society," Passailaigue said. He said it deprives the state of tax revenue, causing taxes to be higher for those who pay them. He said it also hurts children because the legal lottery gets less money to distribute for education.

The Education Lottery statewide takes in about $375,000 to $400,000 a day, and from Jan. 7, 2001, the day the lottery began, to Jan. 31, 2002, it took in about $720 million. During that time, the lottery paid out more than $400 million in cash prizes, Passailaigue said.

Passailaigue wants lawmakers and law enforcement to crack down on his illegal competition. The 3,600 shops in South Carolina that were licensed to sell Education Lottery tickets lose revenue to the illegal lottery, Passailaigue said. "If you are playing the illegal lottery run by the street people you are not paying taxes and not helping to educate our kids. There are fewer dollars for school buses and scholarships."

Tom Marsh, a former FBI agent, who is now director of security for the Education Lottery, and Tony Cooper, the Education Lottery's chief operating officer, both doubt the illegal numbers game is bigger than the legal lottery, but they agree there's no way to measure it. "The fact of the matter is, nobody knows," Cooper said.

"We don't know how many (illegal lotteries) there are, and even though we are doing tremendously well, I am sure they are doing well, too," Marsh said.

The illegal gambling organizations do things the state's lottery can't do, like give credit to gamblers and play people's favorite numbers for them each day, even when they aren't available to place a bet. Some numbers runners even make house calls, going to bettors' homes to pick up money and drop off winnings.

NEIGHBORHOOD GAMBLING

Both Cooper and Marsh said playing the numbers is just a part of life in some neighborhoods and has been for generations.

Mitchell said the horse race-based numbers game traditionally operates in inner-city black communities, such as Charleston's East Side but also "in small-town neighborhoods where everybody knows everybody."

Hispanic and Asian communities each have their own illegal games, with winners determined through number-choosing methods that include daily stock market changes, baseball scores and numbers selected by legal lotteries, said North Charleston police vice squad Cpl. Danny Beachum.

Mitchell said that in Charleston, the numbers game operates out of homes, small stores and sweet shops. Many players are elderly. Numbers takers usually won't deal with a white person, especially a stranger. Mitchell, who is black, had difficulty placing bets as part of her undercover work. People who run the games usually ask for references before they'll take a number.

By making house calls, numbers runners lessen the odds they will have to deal with a bettor they don't already know well, Mitchell said.

"It's easier for them when you come to their house and take their number than for them to go out to a store and buy a lottery ticket," she said.

HARD TO CRACK

But while state lottery officials might wish differently, busting the numbers games just isn't a top law enforcement priority.

At the state level, officials have more or less decided that stamping out operations such as the numbers is the job of local law enforcement.

Local police said gambling operations are hard cases to crack. Penalties for illegal gambling are light, and with limited budgets and manpower, drug problems and violent crimes must get top priority. Most local gambling arrests have been in conjunction with unrelated incidents in which suspects have betting slips or other gambling paraphernalia on them when arrested, Mitchell said.

"Gambling is a crime, but if you have to choose between going after someone gambling and someone who is dealing narcotics, you go after the narcotics first," said Charleston County Sheriff's Office Capt. Dana Valentine, who previously served on the sheriff's office vice squad.

Spokesmen for state law enforcement agencies, as well as the local solicitor's office, all said they haven't made any cases against the numbers racket in anyone's memory.

Assistant 9th Circuit Solicitor Damon Cook said he asked others in the office and got no responses concerning prosecution of illegal gambling cases. "The police would have to make some arrests before we would get those cases."

Trey Walker, a spokesman for the S.C. Attorney General's Office, said no one there, even those who have been on staff since the 1970s, can recall any prosecution of numbers game operatives. "There has not been one case in the last couple of decades."

Operators of an illegal lottery can be sentenced to a year and $2,000 fines for each offense. Players arrested for making illegal bets face only municipal court offenses, Beachum said. The best tool law enforcement has might be the Internal Revenue Service. Mitchell said police often send information about well-heeled numbers operatives and game winners to the IRS and to the State Law Enforcement Division.

A spokesman for the State Law Enforcement Division said the agency's investigators declined to be interviewed about illegal gambling because of ongoing investigations.

There are no known instances of violence associated with the local numbers game, Mitchell said. "They have known you for years and are kind of lenient. If you don't pay your gambling bill, they probably just won't take your bet any more," she said.

This may be one South Carolina tradition that's not threatened by change.

"No matter whether you have a legal lottery or not, you are always going to have street numbers," Cooper said. "You just are not going to be able to get rid of them."

HOW IT WORKS:

-- The numbers game is played twice daily, with a "day" pickup of bets and cash from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and a "night" pickup from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. In Charleston, the winning numbers are determined by numbers assigned to horses that win races in New York.

-- Bets are collected by "number writers" who may come to a person's home or work out of a small store. Number writers take bets as small as 50 cents, but most bets amount to several dollars. Number writers prefer to work in dollar amounts and not deal with coins.

-- Number writers, at the close of each day's two betting cycles, go to pre-selected sites and rendezvous with a "runner," who takes the cash and betting slips to a higher up in the gambling organization. There are many runners and many routes, some of them between cities.

-- The runners turn betting slips and cash over to bosses, who are normally well insulated from the rest of the organization.

-- After the horse races, numbers players can call toll-free numbers to find out the winning numbers. Winners collect from the number writers. Losers pay up.