Taiza Carine da Costa first encountered gambling at the age of nine.
She grew up in the desolate outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There, her godparents sent her down the block with a few coins in her hands to bet on popular lotteries. Although this lottery is illegal, it has long been a staple of Brazilian life. century.
The habit stuck, and as an adult she bet on the game every day. In this game, players bet on animals represented by a series of numbers. Like many Brazilians, whenever she dreamed of creatures, she saw it as a signal to bet on the lottery, known in Portuguese as “jogo do bicho” (animal game).
“I bet I’m dreaming.” Costa (37), a clothing merchant, said.
But these days, Mr. Costa is turning to another game of chance that’s at his fingertips 24 hours a day. In other words, it is a digital slot machine that offers big rewards if you draw three matching symbols.
Tigrinho (Little Tiger in Portuguese) is a copycat of the popular Chinese slots game and has been at the forefront of the explosion in popularity of mobile betting apps since Brazil legalized digital gambling in 2018. Mr. Costa gambles by playing Little Tiger every day. Loss — eventually recovered. She estimates she lost about $80,000 on the app over two years.
“It’s hard to stop,” she said.
From digital casinos to soccer betting, online betting games have sparked a craze in Latin America’s largest country and, like elsewhere in the world, sparked fierce debate over how to regulate the burgeoning industry and protect low-income earners who often pile up debt. . Or you lose a big chunk of your meager return bet.
The gambling craze also threatens Brazil’s animal lotteries, which have been linked to murderous mafias and have been an unwavering part of popular culture since they were invented in Rio de Janeiro in the 1800s and spread across the country.
Decades of crackdowns have failed to root out lotteries and the criminal gangs that run them, but analog gaming now appears to be facing an existential crisis, with fewer Brazilians willing to physically bet at local bookmakers.
Digital alternatives, which offer bigger jackpots and limitless opportunities, currently account for more than $23 billion in bets each year, about 10 times more than animal lotteries, according to the Legal Games Institute, a non-profit that studies gambling in Brazil.
Analog games have six draws a day, but online gambling goes on non-stop.
“The Brazilian gambler now has a casino in his pocket,” said Magno José Santos de Souza, president of the institute.
The animal lottery, on the other hand, “could not renew its foundations,” said Luiz Antônio Simas, a Rio de Janeiro historian and author of a book about the game.
The game was created by a baron in the 1890s to attract more visitors to his newly created zoo in Rio’s Vila Isabel neighborhood. Those with tickets were entered into a drawing and an animal was drawn at the end of each day.
Soon the lottery became more popular than the zoo itself, and similar games of chance began popping up all over the city. Authorities, concerned that the game would harm government lotteries, banned the game three years after it was created.
But the lottery’s advance was unstoppable. Before long, bookies betting outside bars and newsstands were popular throughout Brazil, and the game reached the farthest reaches of the Amazon rainforest.
By the 1970s, animal lotteries had grown into a multi-million dollar business, sparking bloody conflicts as Rio’s mafias fought for control of territory. Gambling kingpins eventually divided the city and country into districts.
To protect their illegal trade, lottery bosses bribed judges, politicians and police. Rio’s working-class neighborhoods won hearts and minds by buying local soccer teams, funding extravagant Carnival parades and handing out Christmas gifts.
“They created a façade of being playful and fun,” said Rio de Janeiro prosecutor Fabio Correa, who heads a group fighting organized crime. “They wanted to create the image of a good Samaritan.”
Over the years, authorities repeatedly tried to crack down on mafia-run lotteries, finally achieving a breakthrough in 1993. A judge sentenced 14 lottery owners to six years in prison. But soon many of the game’s most powerful bosses were free to expand their empires.
On a recent afternoon, near Vila Isabel, the birthplace of the animal lottery, three bookies – each located on a different corner – took bets from regulars. Few of them looked over 50 years old.
“I always bet on pigs or tigers,” said Germano da Silva, 71, a retired publicist. He reached into his wallet and pulled out an old lottery ticket he had won for $450 a week earlier. He added, “Our children don’t know how to play.” “They come to me whenever they want to bet.”
For newcomers, the rules of lotteries can seem daunting. Players bet on a combination of two-, three- or four-digit numbers linked to one of 25 animals, from cows to monkeys. Bets start from a few cents, but rewards can reach thousands of dollars.
But according to historian Simas, most animal lottery players aren’t betting with the hope of getting rich. “They want to make a little money for a beer at the end of the day,” he said. “Playing games is part of street culture.”
In Brazil, a very superstitious country, people have long been betting on animal lotteries based on dreams, lucky animals, and dates of important life events such as birthdays, deaths, and weddings.
“Everyone has their own favorite pastime,” said Nena Coelho, a 60-year-old secretary who was betting on the dog after being inspired by a wanderer who followed a friend home.
Most gambling, including casinos and slot machines, is banned in Brazil, but lawmakers have legalized digital gaming but delayed drafting specific oversight rules. Experts say the delay opens the door for thousands of unregulated platforms to flood Brazil. Some of them are scams.
This reflects the experience of countries like the United Kingdom and the United States, where revenue-seeking legislators quickly legalized digital gambling but later raced to impose regulations, said Lia Nower, director of the Rutgers Center for Gambling Research. university.
“Most legislators don’t really realize that this is potentially addictive,” Nower said.
Digital games were an immediate hit in Brazil, a country of 203 million people that has one of the highest Internet usage rates in the world. The platform, which promises a quick escape from poverty, has quickly become popular among low-income people in countries plagued by deep inequality.
The colorful, kid-like app was often promoted by social media influencers who told followers they could win tens of thousands of dollars in cash on the site, which turned out to be rigged. (Some were later arrested for tricking fans into betting on unauthorized platforms.)
The Brazilian government estimates that nearly a quarter of the population has started gambling online in the past five years. Brazilians now spend around $3.5 billion on online betting each month, according to figures from Brazil’s central bank, and sports betting is a big part of the soccer-crazy country.
Brazilian authorities are rushing to rein in the sector and this month began enforcing new laws requiring betting companies to pay fees and comply with federal regulations on fraud, responsible marketing and money laundering.
Although animal lotteries are still illegal, the shift to digital betting has opened up new revenue streams.
Lottery companies are using legal gambling sites to launder funds raised from illegal activities such as animal lotteries, authorities said.
“They are infiltrating the digital space,” Mr. Corrêa said. “They ultimately want to bring legitimacy to activities that are illegal.”
But even though many people are out of the animal raffle, there are still some who aren’t ready to let go.
Matheus Resende, 30, remembers his father teaching him how to calculate odds and place bets. “He’s the Google of animal lotteries,” said Mr. Rio, a beverage distributor. Resende said.
Today, Mr. Resende is one of millions of Brazilians who place digital bets on soccer matches. Despite this, he has a soft spot for animal lotteries and even stops by his local bookie every week.
He knows about the game’s criminal connections, but says he’s still sad to see it go.
“This is a family tradition,” he said. “So I think there’s a certain nostalgia there.”