A business in Texas has recreated the traditional Mexican card game: Lotería. The idea came after the business was struggling during the coronavirus pandemic and they needed ideas to revive the business.
Sergio Godinez owns a print marketing business in Dallas, Texas. After the coronavirus pandemic hit his business hard and after being denied the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan he decided he needed a way to reinvent his business.
“For weeks we were trying to figure out what else we could do and how we could reinvent ourselves and that is how the whole idea of Lotería Cuarentena came about," he said.
The idea came in a staff meeting when someone suggested they should all play Lotería over zoom to keep the team's spirits high.
"One of our associates said, 'Hey, why don't we recreate our own version of Lotería?' 'The Cuarentena version,'" Godinez said.
That was when "La Corona" became "El Corona," "La Mano" was given gloves and became "Los Guantes" and "El Mundo" became "La Pandemia."
After they launched their website, they had over 100 orders in the first 24 hours.
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“That’s really when the light bulb clicked and I said, ‘Hey this could be something special,’” he said. “So, let’s just keep supporting it.”
Godinez said since then he has sold his Lotería all over the world including, Japan, Italy, Germany, Australia, and Mexico.
"We have a lot of orders that have gone to military bases across the world," he said.
With the success of the game, he said he was able to bring back his staff full-time and even hire additional support staff.
“We’ve been doing this for 16 years and never once did we ever think about printing a game,” he said. “It definitely helped revived our business."
