Jogo do Bicho
Encyclopedia
Rio de Janeiro (state)
Rio de Janeiro is one of the 27 states of Brazil.Rio de Janeiro has the second largest economy of Brazil behind only São Paulo state.The state of Rio de Janeiro is located within the Brazilian geopolitical region classified as the Southeast...
), it is still illegal in 25 of the 26 states of Brazil and those involved may be prosecuted. Paraíba
Paraíba
Paraíba Paraíba Paraíba (Tupi: pa'ra a'íba: "bad to navigation"; Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation: is a state of Brazil. It is located in the Brazilian Northeast, and is bordered by Rio Grande do Norte to the north, Ceará to the west, Pernambuco to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the east...
is the only state where the game is legal and regulated by the state, even though according to a federal law this activity is prohibited. In other northeastern states the game is tolerated by the government.
The Animals of the Game
The name of the game arises from the association of the drawn numbers with a random selection of 25 animals (to help memorising):- 1 - Avestruz (OstrichOstrichThe Ostrich is one or two species of large flightless birds native to Africa, the only living member of the genus Struthio. Some analyses indicate that the Somali Ostrich may be better considered a full species apart from the Common Ostrich, but most taxonomists consider it to be a...
) - 2 - Águia (EagleEagleEagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...
) - 3 - Burro (DonkeyDonkeyThe donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...
) - 4 - Borboleta (ButterflyButterflyA butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
) - 5 - Cachorro (DogDogThe domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
)
- 6 - Cabra (GoatGoatThe domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...
) - 7 - Carneiro (Ram)
- 8 - Camelo (CamelCamelA camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...
) - 9 - Cobra (SnakeSnakeSnakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...
) - 10 - Coelho (RabbitRabbitRabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
)
- 11 - Cavalo (HorseHorseThe horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
) - 12 - Elefante (ElephantElephantElephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
) - 13 - Galo (RoosterRoosterA rooster, also known as a cockerel, cock or chanticleer, is a male chicken with the female being called a hen. Immature male chickens of less than a year's age are called cockerels...
) - 14 - Gato (CatCatThe cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
) - 15 - Jacaré (CaimanCaiman (genus)Caimans are alligatorid crocodylians within the subfamily Caimaninae. Caimans inhabit Central and South America. They are relatively small crocodilians, with most species reaching lengths of only a few meters, although one species, the Black caiman, can exceed in length.-Brain:In Caiman the dura...
)
- 16 - Leão (LionLionThe lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
) - 17 - Macaco (MonkeyMonkeyA monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...
) - 18 - Porco (PigPigA pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...
) - 19 - Pavão (Peacock)
- 20 - Peru (TurkeyTurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
)
- 21 - Touro (BullBullBull usually refers to an uncastrated adult male bovine.Bull may also refer to:-Entertainment:* Bull , an original show on the TNT Network* "Bull" , an episode of television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation...
) - 22 - Tigre (TigerTigerThe tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
) - 23 - Urso (BearBearBears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...
) - 24 - Veado (DeerDeerDeer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
) - 25 - Vaca (Cow)
Over the decades, superstitious theory has evolved around selecting the proper animal, much of it involving dreams. Horse, for example, can be indicated by a dream of a horse, or by dreams of wheat or milk or naked women. The elephant has come to be associated with death, and whenever there is a fatal traffic accident involving a car with one of the elephant's numbers (45-48) on its license plates, the betting is unusually heavy. When the Rio papers published the picture of a derailed locomotive in the 1960s, so many bet on the last four figures of its registration number that the bicheiros were forced to warn that they could not pay off at the usual odds if it won.
Bets and prizes
Each of 25 different animals is assigned a sequence of four consecutive numbers. Ostrich is 01 to 04, Horse 41-44, Camel 29-32, and so on up to the Cow, which occupies 97-00. The most common way to play is to bet one Real on an animal. If the last two numerals in the daily state lottery draw form one of the four numbers designated by your animal, the bicheiro owes you 15 reais. For longer odds and higher payouts, you can try to pick the last three or even four numbers exactly, or you can choose a combination of a number and numerals designated by an animal.There were traditionally four types of prizes:
- Cabeça. You bet on the animal and if that animal is selected you your bet returns 25:1.
- Dezena. You bet on a number from 01 to 00 (Tens). Winning bet returns 100:1.
- Centena. You bet on a number from 001 to 000 (Hundreds). Winning bet returns 1000:1.
- Milhar. You bet on a number from 0001 to 0000 (Thousands). Winning bet returns 10000:1.
In modern times the game has become more complex with many variations of the above that may pay up to 50000 times the bet.
Origin
The creation of the game is fairly well-documented: originator of the jogo do bicho was baron João Batista Viana Drummond, a bluff, bawdy, Brazilian-born Englishman, to whom Emperor Dom Pedro II gave a title and the concession to the Rio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
zoo. To popularize the zoo, the Baron encouraged visitors to guess the identity of an animal concealed behind a curtain, paid off to winners. In time the guessing game became a tremendously popular numbers game, with different numbers for 25 Brazilian beasts.
Tickets were soon being bought by those who hadn't even visited the zoo. Within months, government authorities made its first attempt to shut down the game. The animal lottery simply shifted to a new habitat in the city centre, an environment in which it has thrived ever since. Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
, visiting Rio in the 1920s, wrote of seeing bookies wandering the streets carrying placards with colourful pictures of animals.
The game became popular because it accepted bets of any amount, in a time when most people struggled to survive a very deep economic crisis. "If you see two shacks lost somewhere in the backlands," a Brazilian diplomat once observed, "you can bet that a bicheiro lives in one of them and a steady bettor in the other."
For decades official policy fluctuated between tolerance of the game, fueled by generous payoffs to authorities, and intermittent campaigns to snuff it out. Finally, in 1946, the government outlawed casinos and games of chance, the animal game among them. Nevertheless it survives. Today it is played everywhere in Brazil, but continues to be controlled from Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
by about a dozen bosses, called bicheiros.
A crackdown on the game by the police in 1966 nearly paralysed São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
. More than 60,000 men were idled. At the time it had grown into a US$500 million-a-year business that employed roughly 1% of Brazils total working force. The crisis was quietly resolved in return for unspecified concessions.
Structure
Since its early inception the game has preserved a hierarchy: operators (banqueiros), managers (gerentes) and dealers (vendedores). This same hierarchy was later reproduced in the organisation of drug-trafficking and other types of organised crime in Brazil (this being the most important charge against the innocent game, that it provided a structure that the crime bosses could build upon).Operations are carried on at pontos (points-of-sale) where the dealers collect money and keep record of the bets. The bets (and the money) are sent to the central operator (banca) where the draw is done. All it takes is a scribbled note or a phone call to any of the thousands of bicheiros who haunt the street corners, shops and offices of every city and are easily identified by their sunglasses and cigars. Neither the pontos nor the bancas need a fixed operational centre. Most pontos are mere stools or wooden boxes on which the dealers sit through the day.
Drawings are usually held at 2 PM. in local bicho headquarters, and the winning numbers are immediately dispatched by taxi and bicycle, scribbled in chalk on designated walls and lampposts. So clogged do phone lines become after each drawing that telephone company executives call it "the bicho hour."
The draw is not fair: if too many people bet on a same number it is removed from the lot to prevent the quebra da banca (bankruptcy). This is necessary because most bancas operate with slim resources and their owners do not want to invest their personal assets to pay the bets.
Since the beginning of the 1990s bicheiros expanded their activities to bingo parlors, video poker
Video poker
Video poker is a casino game based on five-card draw poker. It is played on a computerized console similar in size to a slot machine.-History:...
and slot machine
Slot machine
A slot machine , informally fruit machine , the slots , poker machine or "pokies" or simply slot is a casino gambling machine with three or more reels which spin when a button is pushed...
s, known in Brazil as "nickel hunters" (caça-níqueis).
Criminal charges and political connections
Because it is an activity that deals with large sums of sounding money, out of the reach of the government control, the game has attracted the attention of corrupt officials, who may ally with the bosses. The bosses are always interested in buying the leniency of the government or the removal from office of people active on the game's repression. Due to its unlawful bonds with public officials of dubious character, the game still exists, more than a hundred years after its creation.To foster public support, the bosses invested part of their enormous earnings in activities like the financing of samba school
Samba school
A samba school is a club or dancing school. They practice and often perform in huge square-compounds devoted to practicing and exhibiting samba, an African-Brazilian dance. The schools are traditionally associated with a particular neighborhood, often shanty towns...
s and football clubs. From the early 1970s until now, some Rio de Janeiro samba schools are under the control of bicho bosses (bicheiros). Two soccer clubs that were famous for their association with such bosses were Bangu
Bangu Atlético Clube
Bangu Atlético Clube, or Bangu as they are usually called, is a Brazilian football team from Bangu, Rio de Janeiro in Rio de Janeiro, founded on April 17, 1904...
(with Castor de Andrade
Castor de Andrade
Castor Gonçalves de Andrade e Silva was a well-known bicheiro in Rio de Janeiro. Since the 1980s, Castor de Andrade was the uncontested leader of all the main bicheiros of the city of Rio de Janeiro, and had more than 100 policemen and a number of public servants, prominent politicians, and judges...
) and Botafogo
Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas
Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas , also known as Botafogo and familiarly as Estrela Solitária, is a Brazilian sports club based in Botafogo, neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, best known for its football team. They play in the Campeonato Carioca, Rio de Janeiro's state league, and the Campeonato...
(with Emil Pinheiro
Emil Pinheiro
Emil Pacheco Pinheiro was an Brazilian illegal lottery operator in the very popular Jogo do Bicho and the president of Botafogo soccer club .-Bicheiro:...
).
Denise Frossard
Denise Frossard Loschi is a judge and politician from Brazil. She studied law and served as a magistrate in Rio de Janeiro. She has been a law professor at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation...
, a former judge who became famous for sending 14 bicheiros to jail in 1993. "But it is also a quintessentially Brazilian way of laundering money and contributes greatly to the problem of impunity in this country." The bicheiros were arrested for criminal association and forming armed gangs. According to prosecutor Antônio Carlos Biscaia
Antônio Carlos Biscaia
Antônio Carlos Silva Biscaia is former federal prosecutor and currently a politician from Brazil. He is affiliated to the Partido dos Trabalhadores...
, the bicheiros built an association with the principal goal to corrupt authorities and cops and the elimination of 130 people. The superintendent of this association was Castor de Andrade
Castor de Andrade
Castor Gonçalves de Andrade e Silva was a well-known bicheiro in Rio de Janeiro. Since the 1980s, Castor de Andrade was the uncontested leader of all the main bicheiros of the city of Rio de Janeiro, and had more than 100 policemen and a number of public servants, prominent politicians, and judges...
. They were sentenced to six years each, the maximum sentence for racketeering. But in December 1996 they were all back on the streets, granted parole or clemency.
In March, 1994, police raided the stronghold of Castor de Andrade in Bangu. They seized 200 account books and 167 computer diskettes. The findings revealed that big names had been profiting from the illegal activities of bicho's Mafia. Among them, former president Fernando Collor de Mello
Fernando Collor de Mello
Fernando Affonso Collor de Mello was the 32nd president of Brazil from 1990 to 1992, when he resigned in a failed attempt to stop his trial of impeachment by the Brazilian Senate...
, Rio governor Nilo Batista, São Paulo mayor Paulo Maluf
Paulo Maluf
Paulo Salim Maluf is a Brazilian politician with a career spanning over four decades and many functions, including those of State Governor of São Paulo, Mayor of the City of São Paulo, Congressman and Presidential candidate. As of 2011, Maluf is on a second consecutive term as Federal Deputy...
, Rio mayor Cesar Maia
Cesar Maia
César Epitácio Maia is a Brazilian politician, notable for having been elected three times for mayor of Rio de Janeiro.A native of Rio, born in 1945, Maia was forced to leave Brazil in exile during the 1960s on account of his affiliation with the Brazilian Communist Party...
, seven entrepreneurs, three judges, 12 congressmen and seven assemblymen, 25 police commissioners and 100 police officers.
The bicheiros Antonio Petrus Kalil
Antonio Petrus Kalil
Antônio Petrus Kalil , known as Turcão , came to public prominence in Brazil as one of the operators of the jogo do bicho , a popular illegal lottery...
, or Turcão, Anísio Abraão David
Anísio Abraão David
Anísio Abraão David, better known as Anísio, is an illegal lottery operator and the honorary president of the samba school Beija-Flor in Nilópolis. He has been the president of the Independent League of Samba Schools of Rio de Janeiro from 1985-1987.-Bicheiro:Anísio controlled the game in...
, or Anísio, and Capitão Guimarães
Capitão Guimarães
Ailton Guimarães Jorge, better known as Capitão Guimarães, is an illegal lottery operator and the patron of samba school Unidos do Viradouro...
, at the time president of the Independent League of Samba Schools of Rio de Janeiro, were among 24 people arrested on April 12, 2007, for alleged involvement with illegal numbers games, bingo parlors and the distribution of slot machines. Raids by the Federal Police have uncovered big payoffs to judges, police officers, prosecutors and lawyers from the bosses who run the game. Mounds of documents have been seized and US$6 million in cash has been confiscated.
The possibility of legalisation has been often argued, but no practical decision on this subject has ever been made (perhaps because the game's bosses bribe the authorities not to usurp their business).
Cultural Legacy
Despite being illegal, the game left some cultural influences in Brazilian society, even among people that have never played it. One of the most impressive influences of Jogo do Bicho is the strong association of the number 24 with homosexualityHomosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
in Brazil. In the game 24 is the number given to a deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
(veado in Portuguese), an animal that has long been pejoratively associated with gay men. Male people related with this number often have to deal with jokes about their sexuality. This happens, for example, with schoolboys listed as number 24 in the class' alphabetical list or men that are born on the 24th of any month.
The number 24 is heavily avoided by Brazilian male athletes, with rare exceptions. In Stock Car Brasil
Stock Car Brasil
Stock Car Brasil is a Touring car auto racing series held in Brazil, its first season was in 1979, it's considered the major Brazilian motorsports series...
racing, for example, drivers are allowed to choose their numbers, but the number 24 has never been chosen since the first Stock Car tournament, in 1979.
Another legacy of Jogo do Bicho is the use of zebra meaning upset
Upset
An upset occurs in a competition, frequently in electoral politics or sports, when the party popularly expected to win , is defeated by an underdog whom the majority expects to lose, defying the conventional wisdom...
. In 1964, before a football game between Portuguesa (RJ)
Associação Atlética Portuguesa (RJ)
Associação Atlética Portuguesa, or Portuguesa as they are usually called, is a traditional Brazilian football team from Rio de Janeiro in Rio de Janeiro, founded on December 17, 1924.-History:...
and Vasco da Gama
Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama
Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama |Rowing Club]]), usually known as Vasco da Gama or simply Vasco, is a famous and traditional Brazilian multisports club from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, founded on August 21, 1898...
, the manager of Portuguesa, a much weaker team, was asked if he could defeat Vasco. Gentil Cardoso, the manager, commented that beating Vasco would be like drawing a zebra
Zebra
Zebras are several species of African equids united by their distinctive black and white stripes. Their stripes come in different patterns unique to each individual. They are generally social animals that live in small harems to large herds...
in Jogo do Bicho. As there is no zebra in the game, his sentence expressed an impossibility. However, Portuguesa did win that game (by 2-1), and since then the term zebra is used in Brazil for upsets in sports.
The Game in Paraíba
Paraíba is the only federal unity where the game is considered legal, despite the federal law that prohibits it. The game is regulated by the Lottery of Paraíba (LOTEP), which gives licenses for the "bankers" as lottery agents, to avoid the game to become associated with organized crime as in Rio de Janeiro. The state capital, João PessoaJoão Pessoa
João Pessoa , is the capital city of the state of Paraíba, was founded in 1585 and sometimes called the city where the sun rises first, is a Brazilian city and the easternmost city in the Americas at 34º47'38"W, 7º9'28"S. Local residents call its easternmost point Ponta do Seixas. It is also...
, has 15 authorized points. Each point pays a monthly tax to LOTEP, the amount differs in each city, depending on its business volume, in João Pessoa
João Pessoa
João Pessoa , is the capital city of the state of Paraíba, was founded in 1585 and sometimes called the city where the sun rises first, is a Brazilian city and the easternmost city in the Americas at 34º47'38"W, 7º9'28"S. Local residents call its easternmost point Ponta do Seixas. It is also...
the amount is R$6.000. The draw is made three times a day in the LOTEP building and released by the official state radio.