Loteria Mexicana, a bingo-style game with colorful cards and language to match.
This beloved game is played by friends and family at parties across the country.
Items required:
Players (contains: 9 boards for up to 9 players).
A special pack of 54 lottery cards
One game board for each player, called a board.
A cantor to read the selected cards
How is Loteria Mexicana played?
Similar to bingo, players receive a game board, in a 4×4 grid, with a total of 16 squares. Bingo cards are filled with numbers, but the Loteria Mexicana boards, called tablas, feature images of animals, objects and characters.
Once each player has his or her boards, the game can begin. Instead of matching numbers as in bingo, La Loteria players wait for matching images to come up on their boards.
The caller shuffles and then chooses a card at random, just as numbers are drawn from a tombola in bingo. The difference with La Loteria Mexicana is that the cantor often comes up with an original, humorous, even poetic way to describe the card he has drawn.
Players match the description to their board by placing a stone or a bean on the images mentioned. There is a winner once the player who completes their board has to shout "Loteria!"
