“You’ll see how fun this is,” says Yaidelin Rodriguez, 32, a regular with her husband, writing in a notebook bets she has placed on her cock.
Gambling is outlawed in Cuba but wads of cash exchange hands at most arenas. Enthusiasts wear baseball caps that read “Cocks win me money, women take it away.”
In the Ciego de Avila official arena, foreigners pay up to $60 for a front row seat. At concealed arenas, mainly a local affair, seats are $2 to $8, a princely sum in a country where the average monthly state salary is $25.
“We can earn about $600 a day from entrance fees and the sale of seats,” says Reinol, who declined to give his full name.
He splits that sum with his business partner and still earns more from it than from his regular job as a butcher.
Cuba also exports cockerels, breeders say, adding that cocks with proven fighting prowess could sell for up to $1000.
At a secluded arena near Ciego de Avila one recent afternoon, cigar-smoking, rum-swigging owners guarded their birds to make sure no one hurt or poisoned them before the fight.
