"The amusement is licensed by the Government, which sells sheets of paper for a real each on which the game is played. It is done by a combination of numbers all the way from one to ninety. These numbers are arranged on the paper or cards in different combinations, no two cards being alike.
"Each player buys a card and places it in front of him on the table. Then a hat or a basket is passed around, and each one puts in his medio or whatever else the stake may be. When the money has all been collected and the amount of the stake announced, the game begins. In addition to his card each player has a pile of grains of corn in front of him, and a stick with which to rap on the table when the time to do so arrives.
"The object is to get a row of five numbers on the cards from the numbers which are drawn, and the one who first gets a row wins the purse. On a platform, in full view of everybody, is a man with a bag containing wooden or ivory balls, on which the numbers from one to ninety are painted. When the game is to begin, this man draws a ball from the bag and announces the number upon it, and the player who finds that number on his card places a grain of corn over the figures. One after another, numbers are called out in a voice that rises above all the confusion of sounds with which the place is filled, and each time a number is called it is marked with the corn.
"Everybody is intently watching his card, and there is a crowd of spectators looking over the shoulders of the players. Men, women, children—white, black, yellow, and all other colors possible to humanity—are there; and so are all the dresses of Yucatan, from the uniform of the high official and the satin or silk of the grand dame of society down to the cotton garb of the Indian, and quite likely his bare shoulders with no garb at all. Three-fourths of those present are smoking, and the atmosphere is like a morning fog, only a great deal worse.
"By-and-by somebody raps sharply on the table with his stick to indicate that he has made a row of five numbers, and stands up in his place. Then the man on the platform calls the drawn numbers again, and if the announcement of the row is correct the winner takes the purse. As the stake is small, he does not win a great deal; but evidently he is the envy of his less fortunate neighbors.
"Mistakes occur sometimes, and then there is a tumult, in which knives may be drawn and things become very lively for the bystanders. We did not stay long in the place, you may be sure, but we came away convinced that la loteria is less ruinous to the pockets of the players than many other games of chance.
"An American gentleman with whom we talked on the subject said that this game is not unlike one known in some other parts of the world under the name of 'keno.' He told us that there were many other forms of gambling in Yucatan, most of them being forbidden by the Government, and consequently played less openly than the lottery. He told us that there was heavy gambling in the clubs; in some of them the play is only for gold, silver being considered too insignificant and bulky for the amusement of gentlemen.
"We thought it was very much to the credit of the people of Merida that the utmost good-nature seemed to prevail in the dense crowd at the hall we visited. We did not hear a rude word, or witness a rude act of any kind; and the only exceptions, we are told, is when there is a quarrel growing out of the drawing of the numbers from the bag."