The numbers game, also known as the numbers racket, the Italian lottery, Mafia lottery or the daily number, is a form of illegal gambling or illegal lottery played mostly in poor and working-class neighborhoods in the United States, wherein a bettor attempts to pick three digits to match those that will be randomly drawn the following day. For many years the "number" has been the last three digits of "the handle", the amount race track bettors placed on race day at a major racetrack, published in racing journals and major newspapers in New York. In the loosest sense of the word “racket”, the numbers game is a common racket or ongoing criminal scheme among organized crime groups, especially in the United States.