U.S. A form of gambling in which bets are made on numbers to be drawn by lottery. Frequently in to write policy. Now chiefly historical.

In plural. U.S. slang. An illegal form of gambling in which bets are taken on the occurrence of numbers in a lottery or in the financial columns of…

(a) U.S. slang = sense 2e; (b) colloquial the practice of adducing statistics, esp. in support of an argument.

a session of betting at numbers.