Brazil’s Mafia-run animal lottery was unbeatable. Online Gaming Has Changed That.

Taiza Carine da Costa got her first taste of gambling when she was 9 years old.

Growing up in the rundown suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, Ms. Costa’s godfather used to send her with a few coins to bet on the famous lottery, which had long been a staple of life in Brazil, though it was illegal. century

The habit stuck, and as an adult, he would daily bet on a game where players bet on animals represented by sets of numbers. Like many Brazilians, when he saw a creature in his dream, he saw it as a sign to bet on the lottery, known in Portuguese as “jogo do bicho,” or the animal game.

“If I dream, I bet,” says Ms. Costa, 37, a clothes seller.

But lately, Ms. Costa has been turning to a different kind of game of chance she has at her fingertips around the clock: a digital slot machine that offers big prizes if she can draw three matching symbols.

Tigrinya, or Little Tiger in Portuguese, imitates the popular Chinese slot game and has led to a surge in the popularity of mobile betting apps since Brazil legalized digital gambling in 2018. – they collected as a result. He estimates he lost about $80,000 in two years on the program.

“It’s hard to stop,” he said.

From digital casinos to soccer betting, online gambling has sparked fever pitch in Latin America’s largest country, sparking fierce debate as elsewhere in the world over how to regulate the burgeoning industry and how to protect low-income people who are often saddled with debt. or losing large portions of small winning bets.

The gambling frenzy also threatens Brazil’s animal lottery connection with murderous gangs and has been an indelible part of popular culture since it was created in Rio de Janeiro in the 1800s and spread throughout the country.

While decades of crackdowns have failed to eradicate the lottery and the criminal gangs that run it, the analog game now appears to be in the throes of an existential crisis as fewer Brazilians are physically willing to bet with a local bookie.

According to the Legal Games Institute, a non-profit organization that studies gambling in Brazil, digital alternatives – which offer bigger jackpots and infinite odds – now generate more than $23 billion in wagers each year, nearly ten times more than the animal lottery.

While the analog game has six draws per day, online gambling is non-stop.

“The Brazilian gambler now has a casino in his pocket,” said Magno José Santos de Souza, president of the institute.

On the other hand, the animal lottery “failed to renew its base,” said Luiz Antônio Simas, a Rio historian who wrote a book about the game.

The game was created in the 1890s by a baron who wanted to attract more visitors to his newly created zoo in the Vila Isabel neighborhood of Rio. People with admission tickets were drawn into a lottery at the end of each day.

Soon the lottery became more popular than the zoo itself, and similar games of chance began to appear in the city. Fearing that the game would harm government lotteries, the authorities banned the game three years after its creation.

But the advances of the lottery were irresistible. Before long, bookies betting outside bars and newsstands became a game in Brazil, and the game even reached the most remote corners of the Amazon jungle.

In the 1970s, the animal lottery became a multimillion-dollar business, sparking bloody feuds between Rio mafias fighting for territorial control. Gambling bosses eventually divided the city and country into zones.

Lottery kingpins bribed judges, politicians and police officers to protect their illegal deals. In working-class areas of Rio, they won hearts and minds by buying local soccer teams, funding lavish Carnival parades and handing out Christmas presents.

“They built this playful, fun facade,” said Rio de Janeiro federal prosecutor Fábio Corrêa, who heads a task force that fights organized crime. “They wanted to create this image of good Samaritans.”

Over the years, authorities repeatedly tried to crack down on the mafia-run lottery, and in 1993 they finally got a breakthrough: a judge sentenced 14 lottery bosses to six years in prison. But before long, many of the game’s most powerful kings were free to expand their empires.

On a recent afternoon, three bookies — each working a different corner — took bets from regulars in the Vila Isabel neighborhood, birthplace of the animal lottery. A few of them looked to be under 50 years old.

“I always bet on the pig or the tiger,” said Germano da Silva, a 71-year-old retired publicist. Digging into his wallet, he pulled out an old ticket that had won him $450 a week earlier. “My kids don’t know how to play,” she said. “Whenever they want to bet, they come to me.”

Lottery rules can seem intimidating to newcomers. Players bet on two-, three-, or four-digit combinations of numbers associated with any of 25 animals, from cows to monkeys. Bets start from a few cents, but the winnings can reach thousands of dollars.

According to historian Mr. Simas, most animal lottery players do not gamble with the hope of getting rich. “They want to make some money for a beer at the end of the day,” he said. “Gaming is part of street culture.”

In Brazil, a deeply superstitious country, animal lottery bets have long been based on ghosts, lucky animals, or the dates of major life events such as birthdays, deaths or marriages.

“Every person has their favorite game,” said Nena Coelho, a 60-year-old secretary who bets on the dog, inspired by the street leading to a friend’s house.

While most gambling is banned in Brazil, including casinos and slot machines, lawmakers have delayed drafting specific regulations to legalize digital games. Experts say the delay has opened the door for thousands of unregulated platforms, some of them fraudulent, to flood Brazil.

That echoes the experiences of countries like England and the United States, where lawmakers eager to capture tax revenue quickly legalized digital gambling but then raced to enforce the rules, said Lia Nower, director of the Center for Gambling Studies at Rutgers. University.

“Most legislators have no real awareness of the potential addiction it creates,” Ms. Nover said.

The digital games were an instant hit in Brazil, which has one of the highest internet usage rates in Brazil, with a population of 203 million. Platforms that promise a quick way out of poverty have quickly gained popularity among low-income people in a country of deep inequality.

The colorful and childish apps were often promoted by social media influencers who told their followers they could earn tens of thousands in cash on sites that turned out to be fake. (Some then they were arrestedaccused of tricking fans into betting on unauthorized platforms.)

According to Brazilian government estimates, nearly a quarter of the population has started gambling online in the past five years. Brazilians now spend about $3.5 billion on online betting every month, with sports betting making up a huge segment in soccer-mad Brazil, according to figures from the country’s central bank.

In a rush to rein in the sector, Brazilian authorities this month introduced a new law requiring betting companies to pay fees and comply with federal rules on fraud, responsible marketing and money laundering.

Pet lottery remains illegal, but the shift to digital betting has opened up new revenue streams.

Authorities say lottery bosses use legitimate betting sites to launder money raised from illegal activities such as animal lotteries.

“They are infiltrating the digital space,” Mr. Correa said. “At the end of the day, they want to legitimize activities that are illegal in origin.”

But while many have moved on from the animal lottery, there are still some who aren’t quite ready to let go.

Matheus Resende, 30, remembers his father teaching him how to calculate odds and place bets. “He’s the Google animal lottery,” said Mr. Resende, a liquor distributor from Rio.

These days, Mr. Resende is one of millions of Brazilians who place digital bets on soccer games. Still, he has a soft spot for the animal lottery and stops by his local bookie every week.

He knows about the game’s criminal ties, he says, but is still sad to see it fade away.

“It’s a family tradition,” he said. “So there’s a certain nostalgia there.”