Pea-shake house

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Pea shake is a form of gambling found mostly in Indianapolis, Indiana. It is typically run out of ramshackle, inner-city residential or commercial buildings known as "pea-shake houses."

The winning numbers are based on the numbers written or painted on "peas," which are pea-sized balls numbered with a single-digit number. The peas are shaken from a container at least four times a day at each house. Ironically, a number of Hoosier Lottery (Indiana) games are fashioned after pea-shake games, such as selecting winning combinations of three or four numbers, pull tabs and tickets.^{[citation needed]}

People can pay from two cents and up to play pea-shake, and a winner can collect up to several thousand dollars, depending on how much money they put down.

A crackdown on pea-shake houses was announced by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department in April, 2007.^{[citation needed]} In February state senator Glenn Howard had urged there be no crackdown, recognizing that the gambling was illegal but noting that it didn't hurt anybody.^[1]