"Illegals"....usually brings to mind gambling establishments that had table games, or at least slots. In Toledo, there were just soooooooooo many places that took numbers bets. They were just about everywhere. Not unusual for that period of time....ust about every major city in America had it.

From the local places...the numbers bets were usually booked and sent over to the central places. Of course there were plenty of places that had table games as well as booking numbers. And speaking of numbers...there were quite a few interesting numbers rackets. There was even a numbers game called Theatre Bank. That one was created when two of the local movie theatres started a program where if you were on the list and then happened to be in the theatre when your name was picked, you won 600.00 . There were thousands of people that signed up for the list, which was free.

The numbers racket they came up with was like an insurance policy. If you booked the bet for 15cents and you were mot in the theatre and your name was called.....they'd pay you the money.