Luiz Antonio Simas: "From the animal game to the betting pool"
The upset brings joy to those who have never seen a football match and ruins the lives of self-proclaimed expert bettors, like myself.
Luiz Antonio Simas*
The more than century-old jogo do bicho (animal game) was created by Baron Drummond, owner of the Rio de Janeiro zoo, based on a suggestion from the Mexican Manuel Zevada. With the zoo in difficulties—the baron was a monarchist and the Republic stopped subsidizing the garden in Vila Isabel—the idea was to create a lottery that would allow the establishment to be maintained. A visitor who bought a ticket for one thousand réis would win 20 réis if the animal drawn on the ticket was the same one that would be drawn later.
The zebra is not one of the 25 animals in the game, which begins with the ostrich and ends with the cow. The expression "deu zebra" (it was a zebra) comes from the street culture of Rio and the jogo do bicho (animal lottery), hence the name used to describe an unbelievable result in football.
I'm a born loser at games and bets of any kind. Currently, I'm near the bottom of the World Cup betting pool organized by Bode Cheiroso, a bar I frequent in Rio's North Zone. I'm even getting beaten by my 7-year-old son and a nonagenarian lady who didn't know there was going to be a World Cup and gave random predictions to her bearded grandson.
My father loves football and was a star player for Embalo do Catete, one of the greatest teams in the history of Flamengo. The old man thought he would get rich when the Sports Lottery was created in 1970, amidst the preparations for the World Cup and the propaganda that the military dictatorship was using to portray football as an example of a "Great Brazil." The football craze that year was also responsible for the creation of the Kichute, a black boot with rubber studs that became a craze among kids. I scored memorable goals with the Kichute, kicking the ball with my baby teeth.
My father never won the lottery. The one who got rich from it was Miron Vieira de Souza, a man from Goiás who correctly predicted a single result in 1975. Miron didn't understand a thing about football, he made the minimum bet and correctly predicted the most absurd upsets: Corinthians drew with Rio Negro from Manaus, Palmeiras drew with Nacional, also from the capital of Amazonas, and Vasco, the previous year's Brazilian champion, lost at home to América de Natal.
When interviewed about predicting the victory of the Natal team against Vasco, Miron said he thought América de Natal was the same as América from Rio. Since América from Rio played Fluminense that weekend—and lost—and that game was also part of the lottery, Miron's explanation was unusual. He thought América would be tired from playing twice in the same day and predicted the team would win one game against Vasco and lose the other against Fluminense.
The image of the new millionaire flashing a toothless smile, the popular "1001," went viral. Miron became a cattle rancher and got a fresh pair of dentures. He was more prudent than Dudu da Loteca, a winner from Madureira, also ignorant about football, who squandered his money doing crazy things—he decided to become a kart racer and gave away televisions as tips in hotels—and ended up broke in a short time.
While the clueless crowd lined their pockets, the self-proclaimed football experts continued betting and losing every weekend. Exactly like I do in the World Cup betting pool for Russia, with my consistent, well-founded, and invariably unsuccessful predictions.
(*) Luiz Antonio Simas is a Brazilian writer, professor, and historian who published the above article in O Globo.
