A Latinx activist reinvented the Lotería game for millennials

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Depending on where you’re from, different things have different names. In Latin America, the popular board game Lotería is reminiscent of bingo.

Mike Alfaro grew up playing the original Lotería game in Guatemala, but has been living in the United States for the last 12 years. He was recently inspired to create Millennial Lotería, an update on the classic, to reflect the issues and concerns of young people.

“One day I decided to visit home,” Alfaro tells In The Know. “I hadn’t played [Lotería] in years, so it just brought all this nostalgia back, but I realized a lot of the images and concepts were a little outdated for modern times.”

One of the game cards in the original Lotería game is called “La dama,” which means “lady” in Spanish. After seeing the effects of the #metoo movement in 2017, Alfaro thought of a more appropriate update to the card.

“If it was today, it would be La feminist, and I was like ‘oh that’s like a fun little update’.”

Shop: Millennial Lotería, $22.46

Credit: Amazon

Millennial Lotería is very similar to classic bingo, except the game sheets are filled with images relating to millennial culture. For example, there’s la selfie, el hipster, la student debt and more. The “influencer,” or card dealer, calls the cards. Then, the card that’s called and matches the image on the game sheet gets a bitcoin, or la bitcoin.

“If you get four in a row or if you fill the board, you yell out ‘yaaaaaassss’,” Alfaro explains.

The young entrepreneur says Millenial Lotería is great for those who haven’t played the original game. Plus, it makes for a fun activity to go along with your late-night vices.

“I didn’t see people talking about my generation, Latinos, in a way that I felt that we should be talked about,” Alfaro explains. “So instead of waiting for someone to come up with it I was like let me just take this on myself.”

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