International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2018 | Page 13

International Journal on Criminology
in the lottery. An office was even opened in the center of the city so that players
had no need to go to Vila Isabel—the out-of-town location of the zoo—to buy
them.
The game was immediately legitimized by carioca society. The government,
on the other hand, stopped short of regulating this new kind of lottery. As a result,
with the passage of time, it became established throughout Rio, taking advantage
of the grey area between legal and illegal.
The animal game’s little-known history is vague on what led to its creation.
One long-standing theory attributes its appearance to a sort of peaceful popular
protest against Brazil’s anti-capitalist Republic, which had been in place since 1889.
Magalhães 11 notes that many studies recount this positive version of the lottery’s
creation, 12 but fail to recognize the fact that the initial objective was swiftly forgotten
and that the animal game fell into the hands of the Bicheiros, whose purpose
remains to this day the acquisition of easy money, power, and the perpetuation of
their hold on crime.
Magalhães also says that Baron de Drummond was not interested in the fine
arts, nor in architecture and urban planning, as his biographers suggest. 13 Instead,
Drummond was basically an audacious capitalist entrepreneur who, by the beginning
of the twentieth century, had already made his fortune thanks to this new
market and the support of his friends in government. The opening of the zoo coincided
with a period of strong growth in Rio’s property market and brisk financial
speculation.
From Indifference to Repression
The cordial relations between Baron de Drummond and the Rio mayor’s office,
springing from their common aim to modernize and civilize the city, would later
become strained by the ambitions of the mayor, Pereira Passos, who wanted to
transform “Rio, city of favelas” to “Rio, city of marvels.” 14 As the success of the animal
game grew, the mayor came to feel that the proliferation of lotteries was giving
Rio a bad name, and withdrew his permission for the Baron’s lottery project.
The game of animals and other lotteries thus became a cause of conflict
between the city council and the lottery operators. In addition to the dominant
zoo lottery, other games of chance were multiplying in the city and escaping the
11 Ibid.
12 Elena Soárez, “Jogo do bicho, um totemismo carioca” (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro/
Museu Nacional, Postgraduate Program in Social Anthropology, 1992); Selena de Mattos
Meira, “Jogo do Bicho: a resistência pela transgressão” (Master’s dissertation, Universidade
do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Postgraduate History Program, 2000); Roberto DaMatta and
Elena Soárez. Águias, burros e borboletas: um estudo antropológico do jogo do bicho (Rio de
Janeiro: Rocco, 1999), 28.
13 Luiz Edmundo, O Rio de Janeiro do meu tempo, 2 nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Conquista, 1957) vol.
4, chap. 28.
14 This popular sobriquet for the city of Rio de Janeiro remains in use to this day.
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