Jueteng: Филиппинская числовая лотерея и её история.

Numbers game played in the Philippines

Jueteng is a numbers game played in the Philippines. First reported in the late 1800s while the Philippines was under Spanish rule, it was made illegal in 1907 after the United States occupied the Philippines. Despite this, and successive subsequent crackdowns, the game remains popular throughout Luzon, while similar games exist in the rest of the Philippines. The game is popular among many Filipinos, especially in poorer communities. Due to a low buy in and the prospect of a relatively lucrative payout, it is appealing and often considered harmless fun. Individuals who collect bets, known as kubrador, are often considered trusted members of local communities. Different jueteng "lords" run their own competing games. Enforcement of the game's illegality is often lax. Corruption is common, with police and government officials often being accused of running or benefiting from jueteng operations. One president of the Philippines, Joseph Estrada, was impeached, removed from office, and found guilty of plunder, in part due to accepting bribes from jueteng lords. The Philippine government operates the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) Small Town Lottery (STL) as a legal alternative to jueteng. However, corruption has led the PCSO to be accused of being a simple front for illegal jueteng operations. Jueteng is very important to the Filipino informal economy. Jueteng operators and their staff were estimated to number 400,000 in 2009, and many rely on jueteng work for their livelihoods. Congress estimated the annual gross revenue of jueteng operators to be around in 2000. By 2019, this estimate had risen to .

Under Spanish rule, a lottery was run in Manila, although it is unclear whether it was approved via Madrid or developed locally. It is unclear when exactly the practice of jueteng began in the Philippines, but it was mentioned in the Penal Code of 1887, which means it came to the Philippines around the 1800s. The use of Spanish derived terms in the game suggest it developed under Spanish rule. The etymology of the word ultimately derives from Hokkien Chinese, specifically the Quanzhou Hokkien dialect of which modern Philippine Hokkien is descended from. The game is sometimes referred to as "Chinese jueteng", When Chinese Filipino publications such as the World News refer to the game, they use the term, "[[wikt:花" , which means "flower shop" in standard Chinese (Mandarin). Although in 1977, a paper by Gloria Chan Yap was made pointing to Hokkien Chinese as the source of the word, where the author pointed to the terms, "(hue [[wikt:花 'flower', tn [[wikt:檔 'space')", though by 1980, the same author would release another paper revising her findings with a different chinese character, now recording "(huê [[wikt:花 'flower', tŋ̣̆ [[wikt:擋 'space')". According to (Wang, 1982), "[[wikt:擋" used to be written as "[[wikt:當", and another author, E. Arsenio Manuel, from 1948 did also propose the etymology of the word from Hokkien Chinese as "[hoe(flower) tng(pawn,bet),", where the likely chinese characters being referred to would be Hokkien Indeed as per Carstairs Douglas (1873), it can be found that in the Chinchew or Quanzhou dialect of Hokkien means "to gamble in or buy into a game of jueteng". Furthermore, it is revealed that in other dialects of Hokkien Chinese, such as the Amoy or Xiamen dialect, it is known more as Hokkien and in the Changchew or Zhangzhou dialect of Hokkien , from which hence the term "wahoy" or "wahuy", another variant of jueteng, comes from. Douglas (1873) explains that there are 2 kinds of the gambling game, one played using an octangular teetotum with 5 to 8 characters (either chinese character or drawings of old historical or legendary figures in Chinese history), while another has 37 characters (either chinese character or drawings of old historical or legendary figures in Chinese history) on cards and is played by shaking dice without a teetotum. Tambiolo, as a word, is basically "tómbola" + the Italian " olo" diminutuve suffix. Owing to its history in mainland China, specifically Coastal China, it was more popularly and historically known in , read in Amoy Hokkien and in Mandarin and in Cantonese The gambling numbers game started out around the time of the early Ming Dynasty period and grew in popularity during the late Qing dynasty period and spread from Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Tianjin, Beijing, and spread further across Inland China and abroad, such as in Taiwan and the Philippines. It was banned last in China in 1949, but the practice continued in secret under the informal economy and the authorities of British Hong Kong would crack down on the practice in 1975 by setting up government run lotteries to regulate and compete against illegal private lotteries and allocate the proceeds for charity. In early 1985, mainland China authorities in Guangdong province also began to issue lottery tickets across the province, setting a precedent for the first government run lottery since the founding of the PRC and regulating illegal informal private lottery activities. When the Philippines became an American colony, the government cracked down on jueteng. In 1907, it was specifically made illegal by the colonial era Philippine Legislature through Act No. 1757. Since independence, various administrations have continued to try different tactics to end the practice, without success. Jueteng existed even during the martial law era, although not as openly.

Jueteng is a numbers game. They are supervised by higher level operators known as kabo (cabo), or "jueteng lords". Some kubrador may also erect stalls or kiosks on the street to attract bettors. The bettor picks two numbers from one to thirty seven (in some versions, thirty eight). Depending on the kubrador, the game either occurs right then and there,

Bets can be as low as , and it is usual for three games to take place each day. Despite this, cheating by the operators of the game is still possible. Each of the numbers has a specific association within jueteng mythology. when a kubrador interprets signs for a bettor, this is called degla. The decentralized nature of the game, and the multitude of operators, make it hard to eliminate. In some areas the game is run by government officials. President Fidel V. Ramos suggested it should be legalized. Tackling jueteng was not seen as a priority by President Benigno Aquino III. However, he appointed Jesse Robredo, who worked to eliminate jueteng in the City of Naga while he was its mayor, as Secretary of the Interior and Local Government. In 2012 the Pangasinan police chief was fired by the national government for failing to stop gambling, after the Pangasinan Governor was accused of benefiting from jueteng. Six other police chiefs were also fired under similar circumstances. Following Robredo's death in a plane crash, jueteng reportedly expanded. Duterte has however taking action against illegal gambling operations, which he accuses of being run under the facade of legitimate government operations. although this was quickly retracted. In mid 2019 he again announced an easing of a crackdown against the game, citing its role in providing income, and fears those who lose that income would turn to activities such as the drug trade. Around the same time, police chiefs were declared responsible if jueteng operations continued to occur under their areas of jurisdiction.

Although much has been tried to eradicate this form of unregulated gambling by the government, all such efforts have failed due to the game's widespread popularity. This was meant to compete with illegal operations, and direct revenue from the games to the government. The Philippine National Police reported a rise in jueteng operations during this time. Individuals who relied on the STL for income stated they would be forced to return to jueteng if the STL remained closed. It has been asserted that illegal jueteng games were also run through branches and staff of the PCSO.

One study estimated that a third of all money collected goes to the operators, with another third going to bribes for police and politicians. In an impeachment trial running from December 2000 to January 2001, President Joseph Estrada was charged with "bribery", "graft and corruption", "betrayal of public trust", and "culpable violation of the Constitution". The accusations against him included accepting over in the three years from 1998 to 2000 from jueteng lords. After the trial collapsed following his impeachment, protests broke out and he was ousted from power after the army withdrew support for him in 2001. He was succeeded by his vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who had previously resigned from his cabinet in protest. He was later taken to trial and charged with four counts of corruption. On September 12, 2007, he was found guilty of plunder on two counts, including receiving payoffs from illegal gambling. Arroyo announced her husband would leave the country in an effort to reduce pressure on her to resign. Arroyo faced multiple impeachment attempts on similar grounds to Estrada. Six weeks after Estrada was convicted, Arroyo pardoned him. The low cost of a ticket leads many to consider the gambling relatively harmless, While the payouts are not high, they can be extremely significant for those living in poverty.

While Jueteng is mostly popular in Luzon, a related numbers game, played predominately in Visayas and Mindanao, is known as masiao. Other similar games played in Mindanao are "last two" and "suer tres".

The 2006 film Kubrador by Jeffrey Jeturian centers on an aging bet collector (played by Gina Pareño) who finds her mundane existence suddenly transformed by an unforeseen series of events as she seeks players for the illegal game of jueteng she helps operate. This was based on a real life kubrador, and female informal settler who moved to the capital and spent 30 years in the industry. This individual provided information to the film's production team, however she did not attend the film's premier for fear of being arrested. The Tagalog term anak ng jueteng, meaning "son of a gambler", is similar to the English slang "son of a gun".