That's a fair point, Ivy. But it should be mentioned that it was in the early 1980's that the NY Lottery introduced their daily number. It's no coincidence that there was a huge decline in playing street numbers at that time.
Yeah, the legal state lotteries definitely took a lot of business away from the illegal numbers racket. What's left of it today, at least as far as the mob is concerned, seems to be basically an appendage to bookmaking.
By the way, didn't the New York lotto start in the late 1960's? Was it something different then the daily number then?
