RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazilians love to play the numbers. Whether it is the traditional (yet illegal) Jogo de Bicho, operating on city street corners, or national state-run games like the Mega Sena – which boasts the largest jackpot in South America – lotteries are big business in Brazil.
Perhaps the most colorful and unique of Brazil’s lottery obsessions is the Jogo de Bicho or animal game. It was invented in the late 19th century by Baron João Batista Viana Drummond, a Brazilian-born Englishman, who was awarded a title and the concession to the Rio de Janeiro zoo by Emperor Dom Pedro II.
As a publicity stunt, Drummond encouraged zoo visitors to guess the identity of an animal concealed behind a curtain and paid prizes to the winners. What began as a clever promotion eventually evolved into a tremendously popular lottery, with numbers assigned to 25 animals.
Over time official policy concerning the Jogo de Bicho fluctuated between tolerance, often fueled by corruption, and crackdown, galvanized by anti-gambling crusades. In 1946, gambling was prohibited by federal law, but the Jogo de Bicho continues to thrive.
At the street level, the game is run by neighborhood bicheiros, typically identifiable by their informal ‘uniform’ – sunglasses, cigars and/or floral-print shirts – who collect money and record bets. Drawings are usually held at 2 PM in the local bicho headquarters and the winning numbers are quickly disseminated.
An anecdotal measure of the game’s continuing popularity is the claim that phone/mobile data lines become so clogged after each draw that telephone companies can identify “Bicho hour.”
Unfortunately, the Jogo de Bicho game is rigged. If too many people bet on any given number, it is removed from the lot to prevent local operators, who work on fine margins, from going bankrupt.
Perhaps inevitably, given the national appetite for a flutter, the Brazilian government eventually recognized the potential in playing the numbers, entering the business in a big way in 1996 with the Mega Sena game (and others), currently one of the world’s biggest lotteries.
The attraction of the Mega Sena for punters, both domestic and increasingly – in the internet era – international, is the frequency of relatively huge prize payouts. There are two draws per week, and unclaimed jackpots are rolled over. To date, the highest jackpot is R$263.2 million, shared between four winners in 2014.
Equally, the lure of the lottery for governments worldwide lies in the potentially major revenue streams they offer – income voluntarily “donated” without the imposition of additional taxes. When it comes to the lottery; whatever the draw; the government always wins.
By 2011 lottery revenue in Brazil had exceeded R$10 billion and it continues to rise. A significant proportion of this (typically 46 percent) is earmarked for prize money and operating costs, but it nevertheless represents a reliable funding source for social programs.
Although winning is obviously lucrative, the odds of success are extremely long – over 1 in 50 million for the jackpot; over 1 in 150 thousand for second-tier prizes – yet business remains brisk.
Mathematically, betting on the Mega Sena makes absolutely no sense. So, how to explain Brazil’s continuing obsession with playing the numbers?
Much can probably be attributed to natural human optimism, but equally to a genuine lack of understanding of how lotteries work. Industry research questionnaires, for example, reveal that a significant proportion of participants believe the lottery is an easy way to make money.
Many respondents also believe having a tactical betting ‘system’ markedly improves their chances of winning. It doesn’t. Nevertheless, the human mind is conditioned to look for patterns and seek order – even in entirely random phenomena.
Statisticians also suggest people don’t fully appreciate the meaning of relative odds: one in a million, one in fifty million – the ratios make little difference to many punters. In fact, most of us share a binary approach to gambling: zero or one. In other words, if we place a bet, a chance exists – otherwise, there is none.
Another explanation for the popularity of lotteries in Brazil may relate to the massive – and seemingly insurmountable – levels of social inequality in the country. For much of the population, tangible upward economic mobility is simply an unattainable aspiration.
Playing the numbers offers the chance, no matter how remote, to literally “win the lottery” – to finally become a full participant in the rampant consumerism that constantly surrounds us yet remains out of reach for so many.
A Mega Sena ticket represents hope, in what may otherwise be a largely hopeless scenario.
The decision to play the lottery is an emotional choice rather than a rational one. The purchase of a ticket – whether alone or in groups (bolões) – and the rituals the process entails are a means of escape from the often-brutal drudgery of everyday life.
In other words, the nation’s lottery obsession is, at least in part, driven by desperation.
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