Jueteng has been the most popular, yet illegal, lottery game in the Philippines. Derived from the Chinese word hue teng (hue for flower and eng for to bet), jueteng, or forms of the game, have been around since the Spanish era.

To play jueteng, a person bets on two numbers between 1 and 37. Small wooden numbered balls, called bolitas, are placed inside a rattan container. One bolita at a time is rolled out of the container for each of the two numbers representing the winning combination. The lottery is usually done in backyards or even inside homes -- often known in the community.The so-called cobradores, who take the bets and deliver the prizes themselves, announce the winning two-number combination.

Its persistence has been due to the fact that bets are small, from P1 to P200, which even the poorest could spend on. The winning pot ranges from P350 to P40,000, depending on the number of people who bet on the winning combination.

Jueteng is illegal in the country. Despite the fact that it is hardly hidden, it has proliferated on the grass-roots level, because local police and government officials simply look the other way-- for huge pay-offs. Recipients of such bribes are believed to make up a chain starting with the town mayor and police chief all the way to the provincial governor. The last pay-off link Ilocos Sur governor Luis Singson alleges, has been President Estrada himself. Profits of jueteng operators, net of the prizes, has been estimated to total as much as P65 million a day.