Bolita, Spanish for Little Ball, was a lottery popular in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries in Cuba. When I was a kid, Dad told me the story of how once he won the lottery in Sta. Clara and gave the winnings to my Uncle Maximo to buy a bodega! Imagine my surprise when I saw Perico’s picture by a Bolita stand in Sta. Clara, taken in the 1940s– notice the slips of paper held with clothespins! Everyone wanted a picture with the smart donkey! The game was brought to Tampa in the 1880s and flourished illegally in Ybor City’s many Latin saloons.