Booming Bicho

Jogo do bicho, Brazil's popular numbers game, was started in the reign of Pedro II (1841-89) to encourage attendance at a public zoo. Nowadays it pays off on numbers drawn daily in great secrecy by the game's racketeer bankers. The numbers on which wager-loving Brazilians gamble represent 25 different animals. A sequence of four consecutive double numbers is assigned to each animal, ranging from the eagle (01, 02, 03, 04) to the cow (97, 98, 99, 00). Odds depend on whether a player stakes his bet just on the animal--any one of four possibilities--or on a combination of numbers.

Superstitions have grown up around certain of the animals. The elephant (45, 46, 47, 48) represents death. When the press recently reported a suicide at 945 Copacabana Avenue, bicho players recognized the last numbers as the elephant's and rushed to place their bets. When No. 945 came up, those who had cautiously bet on o elefante won 23 cruzeiros for one; those who had plunged on all three digits of No. 945 were paid off at 800 to one.

Last week more & more Brazilians were playing the animal numbers. The bankers who run the game were racking up enormous takes. One reason for bicho's upsurge was the government's suspension of legalized gambling. For three months there have been no drawings in the national lottery and therefore no approved outlet for popular betting. Meanwhile bicheiros, the bankers' touts, did a booming illegal business.

Rio police retaliated with an all-out campaign against the racketeers. Special patrols aided by fire brigades swooped on one bicho headquarters, arrested Millionaire Banker Rafaele Palermo and 35 henchmen. Most Brazilians seemed unimpressed. One skeptical bystander, watching as Palermo and his assistants were hustled into the patrol wagon, muttered: "Bitten by the dogs they've been feeding. That reminds me: o cao [the dog] has not turned up for a long time." Then, like many another citizen, he hurried off to place his bet on o cao.

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