on the bug

[Benjamin Zimmer]

More cites for "the bug"...


"Lotteries Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" by Ernest E. Blanche
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Vol. 269, Gambling (May, 1950), p. 74
The numbers game (known also as policy, clearing house, the bug, butter
and eggs and other names) operates every day except Sunday throughout the
year, players wagering anything from a penny upward on a three-digit
number (000 to 999).

Atlanta Constitution, Aug 8, 1993, p. 5D
State lotteries are competing with the illegal numbers games traditionally
run by organized crime in big cities, experts say.
Three-digit lottery games with daily drawings, such as the one that starts
Tuesday in Georgia, are virtually identical in format to longtime illegal
games - the "Bug" in Atlanta, the "Numbers" up north, and the "Bolita"
among the Hispanic communities of South Florida. ... For many years in
Atlanta, the winning number of the Bug was pegged to the final stock
market price that ran on the front page of the afternoon newspaper.

Atlanta  Constitution, Nov 29, 1995, p. 1B
The "bug" is played by placing bets of 50 cents to $ 1 or more on
three-digit numbers that are matched against closing stock market figures
or other sources of random numbers.
In the "bug," bet collectors, sometimes known as "writers" or "runners,"
gather bets by telephone or on the street. They pass them on to a
"station" and ultimately to a "bank" in a private home or business, Taylor
said.
"A lot of people play the bug on credit, many of them older people who
have played for years," he said.

Atlanta Constitution, Dec 6, 1995, p. 3C
Merritt ran "The Bug," Atlanta's numbers game, sometimes called the
lottery. Early in the 1970s, Merritt had built an empire: houses,
apartment buildings, night clubs, shopping centers, a motel.
People loved him for it, and anyone calling Wesley Merritt a criminal
didn't know daylight from dark. The bug was so much a thread in the fabric
of life in Atlanta's black community that maids going to Buckhead bought
their numbers at the bus stops from men named Buttermilk and Alphabet.
You put up whatever money you wanted, maybe a quarter, maybe a hundred.
You gave the "writer" three numbers recorded on "flash paper" (which
burned in a flash, to bedevil cops) for delivery to "dragmen" who passed
them to "runners" en route to "the bank" where someone "ran the ribbon,"
listing all bets.
At odds of maybe 500-1, the bug promised the joy of anticipation until the
winning numbers were divined from stock-market quotations in the afternoon
paper.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nov 9, 2003, p. 12A
Cash 3, similar to a once popular illegal numbers game called "the Bug,"
is the lottery's biggest single game, dwarfing better-known jackpots like
Mega Millions and Lotto South. Like its illegal predecessor, Cash 3 is
played heavily by blacks and poor people, according to retailers and
former lottery employees.



--Ben Zimmer