The Numbers Game

John’s decades of being involved in the numbers game began when he was a child and would look out his second-floor bedroom window as dozens of people from the neighborhood gathered in the family’s back yard. When a spotter saw a police car approaching, the message was passed to a lookout who would yell “Rise UP!”—prompting everyone to rush out from one of the three gates in the fences surrounding the back yard.

As a teenager, John became more greatly involved in the numbers business and gained a reputation of being trusted with large sums of money as well as collecting and delivering bets to a central location. He made his way up to increasingly larger operations that included one headed by a notorious fight promoter. Even becoming a “token” black police officer, John continued his involvement in the business. His payments for services included the ability to afford a comfortable place to live and two cars—one a new Lincoln Continental.

John’s involvement led to expanding his roles in operations in Atlanta, Georgia, but it ended when the Federal Bureau of Investigation presented nearly two years’ of documentation about the illegal gambling that had transpired. John avoided an obvious trap to implicate him further, and realizing that the agents were closing in on the operation, he accepted an offer of testifying for the federal government.

Court papers show the meticulous work of the F.B.I. agents, including the recording of transferring of papers and money right down to the minute, even in places like a Waffle House. When asked years later if he feared that the criminals in the enterprise would come after him for his testimony, he replied, “They were afraid of the people I knew who held higher positions than they did.”