Blacks and Italians shared the numbers business in Harlem from as far back as the '30s. The truth is, the Italians couldn't have run it at all without using black middlemen, like Bumpy Johnson. Eventually, as the black population exploded in Harlem and numbers runners became more and more independent, they lost their need for (and fear of) the Italians all together, and went out on their own.
Why do you suppose Giancana and company were able to steal away and control the Chicago numbers racket ? What was different in Chicago than in NY? The blacks still greatly outnumbered Italians in Chicago too.
The Outfit took over the black numbers operations on Chicago's south side back in the 1950's. Guys like Roe put up a fight but they couldn't stand up to the mob's political clout and street muscle at the time.
In New York, Dutch Schultz was the first to move in on the black numbers rackets in Harlem. After he was killed, the Italians (Genovese and Luccheses) took over. Guys like Bumpy Johnson were the middlemen who took bets directly from the people in the black communities. But they had to use the mob's banks.
If you read former NYPD Remo Franceschini's autobiography, he talks about how the Italians still had overall control of the numbers racket as late as the 1970's. It was in the 1980's that there seemed to be less contact with the mob and the blacks in the numbers racket. The mob was switching more to sports betting anyway, which typically served a more white clientele. Meanwhile, where the numbers racket became the biggest was in the Spanish areas.
