Since independence, at least 28 African countries have legalized some form of gambling. Yet a range of informal gambling activities have also flourished, often provoking widespread public concern about the negative social and economic impact of unregulated gambling on poor communities. This article addresses an illegal South African numbers game called fahfee. Draw...

This article reviews the history of an illegal Chinese-run numbers game or lottery in South Africa. Structurally very similar to games played by Chinese immigrants in the USA, fahfee operations (or banks) provided an illicit accumulation strategy, which allowed entrepreneurial Chinese immigrants to survive at the margins of a discriminatory racial–capitalist order,...