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"I've
Got Bingo" --
Charitable
Gaming in Virginia
When
author Barbara Holland inherited her mother’s
summer cabin in 1990 and moved to the northern Blue
Ridge Mountains of Virginia, she named her memoir:
"Bingo Night at the Fire Hall: The Case for
Cows, Orchards, Bake Sales and Fairs." For
Holland, bingo and the simple, pastoral life that
was fast disappearing in her new home were
synonymous.
The
reality is a bit different. While gray-haired
retirees still flock to regular bingo games in
churches, synagogues, Veterans of Foreign Wars posts
or Moose and Elk lodges in places such as Grundy,
Norfolk and Danville, others crowd into huge bingo
establishments, such as the Bingo Palace in Virginia
Beach to play all night with 30 cards spread around
them, vying for large jackpots.
Bingo
is big business in the Old Dominion. In 2004, gross
revenue for charitable gaming, including bingo,
totaled more than $400 million. More than 14 percent
went to charitable purposes (12 percent is
required). More than 75 percent of gross sales are
paid out in prizes (“Virginia Department of
Charitable Gaming: 2005 Annual Report to the
Governor and General Assembly”).
Bingo
and other charitable gaming, such as raffles, have
been regulated in the Old Dominion since 1973.
Originally, games were licensed by local
jurisdictions. Then a state-wide Virginia Gaming
Commission was established. In 2003, the commission
was replaced by the Virginia
Department of Charitable Gaming. The department
is tasked with enforcing charitable gaming statutes,
but also sees its role as educational. It offers
security tips on its Web site -- bingo games often
handle large amounts of cash -- as well as training
opportunities for game organizers.
How
did this simple game, played on a card with random
numbers in a five-by-five matrice, become so
popular? Modern bingo traces its origins to the
1920s. According to one account, a toy salesman
named Edwin Lowe came upon a country carnival in
Jacksonville, Fla., in 1929. He approached a crowd
playing a game on a table covered with numbered
cards and beans. Called Beano, it was a variation of
16th-century Italian game known as Lotto that had
become popular in the U.S. in the late 18th and 19th
centuries. The salesman returned home and began
inviting friends to his home to play this new game.
One player became so excited when her winning number
was called that she supposedly yelled “Bingo”
instead of the appropriate “Beano!” (Origins
of Bingo)
Lowe
began producing the games and soon was approached by
a priest, who had been using the game as a
fund-raiser. The cleric had run into a problem,
because each game produced several winners. Lowe
then paid a retired mathematician to devise 6,000
new bingo cards with non-repeating number groups. By
1934, Lowe employed 1,000 employees spread on nine
floors of an office building. They operated 64
presses 24 hours a day to keep up with demand for
the estimated 10,000 bingo games played each week.
While
the game is not the fad it once was, today bingo
still attracts dedicated advocates, who will play
several times a week, hoping for the evening’s
$1,000 jackpot (the maximum allowed under Virginia
law). A typical weekly game at a fire hall, such as
the Burke Volunteer Fire Department, might consist
of 25 games. Players buy books of games for $8. Each
book might have 24 faces and players will juggle as
many games as they can handle. Different patterns,
such as a single line, two lines, a center cross, an
L, a Y or a cover-all in which every number is
covered, would be required to win individual games.
Simple games yield a $100 prize.
The
game has its own jargon, from equipment used to the
way numbers are called. Players use felt-tipped pens
called “daubers” to mark a called number. When a
player is one number away from winning, she tells
the caller she is “set.” A BBC Web site offers
advice to British number callers, who play a game
similar to bingo, called “house.” They are
encouraged to “speak as clearly as possible and
try to be a little melodic in tone.” The callers
are urged to shake-up the numbers now and then –
not because it helps keep the selection random, but
for effect. “Everyone will believe that you are a
very fair and trustworthy caller, indeed.” Should
callers pick consecutive numbers, they are advised
to “give a slight shake of the head and ‘tut’
almost inaudibly.” This supposedly preempts
players from blaming the caller, rather than
equipment, on the coincidence.
Back
to Virginia’s bingo games. All is not always
sweetness and light. A cash-heavy industry sometimes
runs into problems. A 2004 article in the Virginian-Pilot
(“State Regulators Cracking Down on
Multimillion-Dollar Bingo Industry,” August 9,
2004) reported that some of the bingo games in the
Hampton Roads area, which hosts most of the large
commercial bingo halls in the state, had run into
trouble. The Virginian-Pilot reported that
the state revoked the license of one game when its
organizer was found to have bought a Cadillac with
some of the proceeds. Other groups have given up
their charity bingo games because of competition for
players, difficulty in recruiting volunteers and the
disappearance of funds. Overall, though, state
regulators say most games, which benefit many types
of non-profit groups, are organized well.
Bingo
is also criticized by those concerned with gambling
as an addiction. “It doesn’t matter if it’s
horse racing or slot machines or bingo,” said the
director of a compulsive gambling treatment center
in a 2002 Washington Post article. “There
are people who are vulnerable. It’s like saying
beer won’t lead to alcoholism, only hard liquor.
It’s sheer nonsense. Alcohol is alcohol; gambling
is gambling.”
But
the debate could eventually be irrelevant. Holland
may be right in seeing bingo as a nostalgic
throw-back to a simpler time. Competition from
online gaming, slots and other games of chance is
luring bingo players away to more lucrative
jackpots. Across the Potomac in Maryland, where
slots are looming on the horizon, some bingo halls
are even closing their doors. For now, though, when
the dots line up, the traditional cry –
“BINGO!” -- echoes in halls and lodges
throughout the Old Dominion. All in the name of
charity.
NEXT:
Have You Ever Seen the Rain? Droughts in Virginia
--
May 1, 2006
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