Beasts of Prey or Rational Animals? Private Governance in Brazil’s Jogo do Bicho

A rational-choice account of Brazil’s jogo do bicho (animal game), possibly the largest illegal lottery game in the world, examines the mechanisms that have fostered the lottery’s notable growth outside the boundaries of Brazilian law and reveals how animal-game financiers combine costly signals and selective incentives to induce cooperation from members of the community and exploit the fragmentation of Brazil’s political system to advance their long-term interests.

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