Lotería

Lotería, Mexican card game of chance, played using a deck of 54 cards with images. It is similar to bingo, and players try to match images on drawn cards with a set of 16 images on their individual boards. The most common version of Lotería is called Don Clemente Gallo and is known for its brightly colored images that are a staple of Mexican culture. The game is culturally significant in Mexico, where it is usually played within families, often with several generations playing together.

History

Lotería originated in Italy in the 15th century before moving to Spain; early versions were used in gambling and as light entertainment. The game was introduced to Mexico (then known as “New Spain”) in 1769. In Mexico, Lotería was initially played by the upper classes but gradually gained mass popularity via traveling fairs (called ferias).

The images on Lotería cards have typically featured commonplace objects and characters and have drawn on artistic influences including tarot cards, local cultures, and religion.

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In 1887 Clemente Jacques, an immigrant from France, created Don Clemente Gallo, the version of Lotería most widely known today; the gallo (“rooster”) is the national emblem of France and has continued to be the first card in this version of Lotería. Jacques owned both a food processing plant and an ammunition manufacturing business and mass-produced his game as a marketing technique. He also included a version of the game in canned military products sent to Mexican soldiers, thus helping distribute the game further when the soldiers returned home. Another version was created by José María Evia Griñé, a cigar merchant in Campeche, Mexico, in 1895; it featured 90 cards and is now known as the Lotería Campechana.

Format and play

Lotería is conceptually similar to bingo; both games involve players trying to match chance draws to an individualized game board or grid. However, there are key differences: Unlike the numbers that are drawn from a drum or bag in bingo, Lotería cards are drawn from a deck. Each card features a number as well as images of animals, characters, or objects.

The number of cards in a deck varies, but most versions have 54 cards. In addition, the game will feature a number of tablas, each with 16 squares in a 4×4 grid; the images on each tabla will be a random selection from the 54 images in the deck of cards. Each player is given a tabla, and one person is named the cantador (“caller”). The cantador draws cards from the deck and announces which card it is. Instead of calling out the card name, the cantador may sing the verse associated with the card. How the cantador performs often varies based on the social setting of the game; their skill is thus key to how the game is played and enjoyed. Players who find a match mark the square on their tabla with a bean or coin; the game continues until players finish predetermined objectives, such as completing a column, a row, the four corners, or the entire board. Players who complete a full tabla shout “Lotería.”

The 54 cards traditionally used in a Lotería deck are listed in the table below, along with the verse accompanying them. Minor variations are often seen across decks, and some decks may contain different cards as well as verses.

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Variants

Several variations of Lotería have been created over the years. Both printed and electronic variants have been made based on themes such as food and for specific events such as baby showers.

Annette Sexton-Ruiz, an Arizona-based artist, created a 2011 version inspired by then-recent anti-immigration legislation. In 2017 Mike Alfaro created a version called Millennial Lotería to make the game more aligned with modern Latinx culture. He changed some of the names and images of the cards, for example replacing la dama with la feminist and el mundo with la student debt. Originally just a series of images on Instagram, his version proved popular enough to become a best-selling game.

On December 9, 2019, Google released a special Google Doodle titled Celebrating Lotería!; the site allowed users to play the game online in a multiplayer format and featured new cards such as el guacamole and el emoji.