These are all the registered letters of the lottery. As we saw in the previous post, the lottery is of Italian origin, it became the favorite pastime of many, and it arrived in what is now Mexico at the end of the 17th century. After the war of independence, the game's popularity spread throughout the country.
Now, the images of the Lotería Mexicana have become icons of the culture and traditions of our country, and we find them practically everywhere: from tattoos, to t-shirts, hats, and all kinds of souvenirs.
This board game is commonly related to bingo, however, the Mexican Lottery has its own soul, as its illustrations refer to emblematic characters of our culture such as: the chalupa, the flag, the catrín among others.
•The game consists of 54 cards to play, each with a different image, a number and a name.
One or more boards for each player and grains of corn, or beans, to mark the boards. These have 16 images of the deck of cards, which are distributed in a 4×4 grid.
•Those who play it are at least three people, "the screamer", who is the one in charge of "singing" the lottery according to his image; and the rest, the players, who are the people who select one or several templates to cover them with the grains.
•The way of playing is very simple, before the start of each game, the players must choose their boards. The game then begins when "the screamer" calls out a random card and announces the name of the card or the riddle that goes with it.
•The object of the game is to be the first to complete a specific squad, set at the start. This is achieved when the images that make up the in-game template are announced by "the screamer" and marked by the player.
If the card image appears in the player's game, the player marks the image with a grain of corn, or bean. This is repeated until the first player completes the desired template and calls out “Lottery!” or “Hello to (the card you won with)!”
There are some variants that make the game more exciting, these consist of being the first to complete a specific line before completing the template. Among the most common variants are:
Like bingo, the Lotería Mexicana can be played for fun or for money. When playing for money, the prize is based on the funds collected from the purchase of the tables, the winner is the one who first completes the template correctly. If there are several winners, the prize is shared equally.
How to sing and what is the songbook of couplets to play the Mexican lottery we will leave it for the next publication of our blog.