Jogo do Bicho: Brazil’s popular illegal animal lottery is losing its bite

At the intersection of two of the busiest streets in the Copacabana neighbourhood, just a five-minute walk from Rio de Janeiro’s most famous beach, it is possible to play a gambling game created 134 years ago – and banned for almost as long.

There is a police station just one block away, but it is no inconvenience for the bookie.

Sitting on a plastic chair in front of a bar, he calmly records bets on his mobile phone – previously it would have been a paper slip. In moments, the receipt prints out from a small machine on top of a high wooden table, leaving the gambler to hope for the best.

Despite being illegal, Jogo do Bicho – or animal lottery – in which players bet on combinations of creatures and numbers, can be played in every Brazilian state.

Since its inception, the lottery has established profound connections with perhaps two of the most significant Brazilian cultural expressions – football and carnival – and has deeply affected urban violence, especially in Rio, where it was created.

For decades, groups controlling the game have been linked to a list of murders resulting from territorial disputes.

One of the most shocking and high-profile murders in Rio’s history had an indirect connection to the lottery: Ronnie Lessa, the man who shot the councillor Marielle Franco, used to work as a contract killer for Bicho controllers.

“It’s impossible to tell the history of Rio without Jogo do Bicho,” said the historian and writer Luiz Antônio Simas, who has just launched a book about the lottery created in the late 19th century.

At the time, Rio regarded itself as a European city. A wealthy businessman, the Baron of Drummond, bought an old slavery plantation near the city centre and decided to transform it into Brazil’s first “planned” neighbourhood, inspired by Haussmann’s renovation of Paris .

He named it Vila Isabel – a tribute to the daughter of Emperor Pedro II of Brazil – and opened Rio’s first zoo there.

To boost sales, he devised in 1892 a lottery where each ticket would include a drawing of an animal, from Brazilian creatures, such as alligators or monkeys, to distant ones, such as camels or tigers. At the end of each day, those whose animals were drawn won money worth 20 times the price of the ticket.

The draw became more popular than the zoo, and other merchants began replicating the model as a gambling game.

That was when it became a problem for the authorities, Simas said. “Rio criminalised practically all cultural and playful activities of those descended from enslaved people and from everyone else who was poor.”

Other gambling activities enjoyed by the wealthy, such as horse betting, remained legal while Jogo do Bicho was outlawed in 1895.

But it was already on the streets and continued, later spreading throughout the country.

Depending on the city, there can be up to five daily draws, seven days a week, with prizes varying according to the order in which the numbers appear.

For the promoters and the gamblers, Jogo do Bicho is not a crime but a misdemeanour. The maximum prison sentence is short – one year, at most – and is often converted into alternative measures, such as fines.

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, recently said : “This country is funny; Jogo do Bicho has been prohibited to this day, but everyone still plays it.”

For the investigative journalist Rafael Soares, who wrote a book about Rio’s mafia-infected underbelly , “the problem isn’t the game itself, but the monopoly”. To maintain and expand control, the leaders – called bankers or bicheiros – kill anyone who stands in their way.

“And they are infiltrated within the police forces,” Soares said. “Investigations against the Jogo do Bicho are rare, but they always reveal that there are public agents working for the bicheiros, either providing them with security or receiving bribes.”

Although a bookie can be found in every neighbourhood of Rio – and in some cases, every two or three blocks – the historian Felipe Magalhães said he believed Jogo do Bicho’s time may soon be up.

“The younger generations no longer have interest in it. And it doesn’t bring in that much money for its bankers any more,” said Magalhães, who also wrote a book about the animal lottery.

Bicho bankers have diversified their activities, both illegal – such as slot machines and casinos, which are prohibited in Brazil – and legal, including real estate and sports betting. Some estimates suggest that, for certain groups, Jogo do Bicho now only represents 10% of their revenue.

“But it remains the main source of income for hundreds of precarious workers who work as bookies,” Simas said.

In his recent book, Simas said he sought to avoid either romanticising or criminalising Jogo do Bicho and its practitioners. “Whether one likes it or not, the game is deeply embedded in the city’s history,” he said.