tambiolo

plural tambiolos · alternative tambola

1. PhilippinesgamblingA fish bowl or barrel-shaped container where balls used in a raffle or a lottery are placed. In the case of a raffle, tickets may also be used. Can be made out of wire, glass, clear plastic, etc. Often has a handle, which, when rotated, mixes up the balls or tickets.

   The lottery during the time of José Rizal used the traditional manually operated tambiolo where numbers were drawn for the winning combinations.

   2010 November 30, Perseus Echeminada, “Rizal a lottery winner in 1892”, in The Philippine Star, retrieved 25 Jun 2020

   1 more example

   A few days ago, the Manila police raided one such bingo game in the Blumentritt area. The police grabbed pieces of evidence, such as the tambiolo from which the winning numbers are taken, and cards, in the process of which there was a scuffle and the uniform of a policeman and the T-shirt of a Sangguniang Kabataan chair were torn.

   2013 February 19, Neal H. Cruz, “Is bingo an illegal numbers game or not?”, in Philippine Daily Inquirer, retrieved 25 Jun 2020

   Synonyms: raffle drum, bingo drum, lottery drum

2. Philippineschiefly politicalA system by which the government gives out assets, such as land, supposedly at random, but which some feel is actually rigged.

   Through a dubious “tambiolo” method, 5,718 Certificates of Land Ownership (CLOA) were distributed to farmers.

   2016, Arnisson Andre Ortega, “The Business of Building a Nation”, in Neoliberalizing Spaces in the Philippines: Suburbanization, Transnational Migration, and Dispossession, Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield), →ISBN, page 61

   1 more example

   The “tambiolo land reform” in the Cojuangco- and Aquino-owned Hacienda Luisita sugar estate is a fraud and the fact that the lawyer of the estate is defending the process is sufficient proof that former Agrarian Reform secretary Virgilio Delos Reyes was conniving with the landowners.

   2016 July 5, Sandy Araneta, “‘Tambiolo land reform’ slammed”, in The Manila Standard, retrieved 25 Jun 2020