I think I neglected to blog about this earlier, but one of the funniest things about Brazil to me was their obsession with Bingo. In the US, Bingo has been relegated to the church basment social and nursing home, and occasionally for little kids (I have fond memories of playing in the library on Fun Night at Yankee Ridge Elementary School). Bingo is not what you would call a sexy game, like baccarat, poker (that’s for you, Jeff), or to a lesser extent, craps

In Brazil Bingo is a big deal. They have a Bingo Association that publishes pamphlets extolling the virtues of playing Bingo, and how various celebrities financed their careers through the game. The parlors are as full of glitz as any Vegas casino, employees smartly dressed in white shirts and green vests. The room is dominated by a large board covered in numbers which are lit up when they are selected by the MC. Cocktail waitresses serve caipirinhas or whatever your heart may desire. You want to be part of that scene, you want to be one of those people having fun and making money by getting five in a row, column, or diagonal.

So naturally, when the goverment tries to cut down on corruption by stopping the gambling, 30,000 Brazilians take to the streets to protest. If they did the same thing in Vegas, would we have tens of thousands of strippers take to the streets in protest?