THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 8, 1995 TAG: 9502070114
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 207 lines
As I lay me down to slumber,
all I need is one more number.
When to the next game I go,
I pray the Lord I yell, `Bingo!'
- Bingo player's prayer
THE FIRST THING you notice is the pall of cigarette smoke that hangs in the air like some nightmare image from the American Lung Association.
Chalky blue and pungent, it drapes the hunched shoulders of 400 men and women sitting intently before rows of folding tables, several ashtrays on each one.
They hardly look up. They hardly move, in fact, save for the moment when they methodically stab their fat vegetable dye markers to tag the number as it's drawn.
``B-15,'' the caller drones over a speaker.
A flurry of hands blot the spot.
``G-79,'' says the caller.
The colored markers jump.
It is 11 a.m. Wednesday, hump day, and working stiffs all across Virginia Beach are stuck in the middle of the morning shift. But at Witchduck Bingo, 660 N. Witchduck Road, under a nicotine haze, one of the city's most robust businesses is roaring along. It is the closest thing the city has to organized gambling, but it is commonly known as bingo.
Last year, gross receipts for bingo in Virginia Beach hit $24,459,793, making it one of the most cash-intensive businesses in the city. Most of the money was funneled back into the game in the form of prizes and operating expenses, which last year totaled $22,397,421.
All of this economic activity swirls around the 13 bingo halls in Virginia Beach, which compete for thousands of dedicated players. Traditionally, they have been housewives out to earn a little extra household cash and help the local church, but increasingly bingo halls are populated by working men and women of all ages out to earn money through wagers.
For most halls, the basic mission - to support non-profit causes - remains. Little leagues, animal shelters, community bands, a chapter of the Red Cross, several churches, and at least one community-sponsored high school dance all benefit from the millions of dollars that players spend each week on the chance of winning $100 or the daily grand prize of $1,000.
By law, they are non-profit enterprises and as such they are closely watched by city auditors. Any hall that averages $50,000 a quarter in gross receipts - which means most of them - must be audited four times a year by the city at the hall's own expense. The law helped the city net $242,269 last year in auditing fees, said Lope Pile, who audits the community's bingo books. What money remained after audits, expenses and prizes - about $1.8 million - helped pay for the handful of salaries for bingo workers and the non-profit organizations they support.
The law limits bingo halls to offering just two sessions per week, generally divided into morning and afternoon periods that can include 60 or more games. Yet even with these limitations, operators still manage a thriving business and typically say that regular players make the rounds to each game so that every day they wager a little something on the game at one hall or another.
To get in a game, players must buy a ``pack,'' which includes pre-printed game sheets coded for security checks. Packs typically cost about $5, but most halls offer specials that allow players to participate in several games at one sitting. These so-called value packs usually cost from $15 to $27 depending on the number of games played.
As the game's popularity increases, operators try all manner of incentives. Among the favorites is the ``Quickie Blowout.''
Like the traditional game of chance in which a combination of numbers and letters are called out until players complete a row of five correct number-letter combinations, blowouts are essentially the same game - only faster. The caller, or person who calls out the numbers, simply calls numbers in quick succession, forcing the player to read cards faster and, hopefully, collect winnings faster as well.
Not only are quick games offered, but halls sell small, medium and large packs of playing sheets along with ``special'' promotions that allow people to play more games. Players like the options, but most are designed for the hall's competitive edge.
``Bingo has become so competitive that you have to give these value packs just to keep your customers,'' said Janis Dryer, manager of Independence Bingo, one of the city's largest halls with seating for 700.
``You have to outsmart your competition,'' she said, adding that the additional games seem to work.
``I'd say that more than 80 percent of the people who play bingo play no less than five times a week,'' said Dryer, whose hall supports the Animal Assistance League.
Nothing quite compares for sheer intensity than ``Instant Bingo,'' the game's answer to the lottery's popular scratch 'n' win games.
During scheduled breaks, the Instant Bingo counter resembles a stock exchange trading floor. Within minutes of the start of a scheduled break from regular bingo, a rush of people crowd the instant bingo counters where people quickly drop 10- and 20-dollar bills before the volunteers. They in turn hand them packs of instant bingo cards, which cost $1 each.
About the size of a playing card, the game is played by simply bending the card in half, allowing the perforated tabs to pop up. If they spell ``B-I-N-G-O'' you win.
``Wednesday morning is one of our biggest days,'' said Vickie Carroll, who manages Witchduck Bingo. ``We have a `Quickie Blowout' at 10:30 a.m. but we have people who show up at 8:30 so they can get their favorite seat. Pretty amazing, huh?''
Witchduck Bingo supports the Aragona-Pembroke Little League, helping to underwrite summer baseball for about 650 youngsters. It funds the Kellam Parent Teacher Student Association, which sponsors an annual graduation weekend party, and it helps the Old Dominion Aquatic Club, which provides swimming opportunities for children.
While they love the causes, it is the chance at winning money that drives so many bingo players. Ask any hall operator about the ``horror stories'' and out come tales of fist fights over preferred chairs, lucky charms to sweeten the odds, small fortunes lost and a regularity of attendance that borders on addiction.
``We have people who line up the `dabbers' (colored markers) so their neighbor won't see what they're doing,'' said Carroll. ``Some people don't like certain people sitting next to them and some people show up every time in the same clothes - their lucky clothes.''
Regardless of what clothes a player wears, it's not long before the smell of cigarette smoke has so permeated them that one might wonder if the smell would ever come out. Not all bingo players smoke. Many non-smokers have pushed hard for no-smoking sections in their halls and some halls, like Lynnhaven Bingo, promote their non-smoking sections as clean and friendly places to play.
Some players are grateful for smoke free games. Among them is Beverley Curtis, a 68-year-old native of Australia, who works her colored markers from behind a glass partition built into a corner of the bingo hall. Like the main hall, the non-smoking section is packed Wednesday mornings.
Curtis, who now lives in Great Bridge, loves the game so much she makes a special point of getting to the hall early - real early.
``I was here at 8:30 a.m.,'' said Curtis, referring to the 11 a.m. game. Each Wednesday morning she pulls her Cadillac - the license plate reads ``Aussie'' - into the parking lot and takes her seat inside the non-smoking section.
``I always get here at that time so I can get a particular seat,'' she said, pointing to the spot in question. ``It's not a very lucky spot but it's my favorite.''
For most bingo players, the game and its chance of winning money is an important reason to attend, but it also affords the chance to visit friends.
``I suppose it is like gambling, although I don't like slot machines much,'' Curtis said. ``What I like is the socializing. Usually I play with my friends, like these people,'' she added, pointing to three women seated at the same non-smoking table where she kept her plastic bingo board.
For those still baffled by this love of bingo, Joyce Noe has a ready answer.
``I love bingo, and you know why? I'll show you,'' said Noe as she pulled out a $1,000 check with her name on it. ``This is why. To me, this is not gambling. I go to Atlantic City once in a while, but this is a different game. Here you don't lose as much money as you do when you gamble.''
But there are many bingo players, she admits, who border on the compulsive.
``I see a lot of people here who should not be here. There are people here who play seven times a week.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by MORT FRYMAN
Some take their bingo very seriously - even calling on higher
intervention. ON THE COVER, Gloria Lynch celebrates winning the
Witchduck Bingo jackpot of $1,000.
The caller, Mike Dickerson, has a full house at Witchduck Bingo. To
draw more customers, halls offers traditional games, as well as
``Quickie Blowout'' and ``Instant Bingo.''
Denise Lang, a waitress, plays bingo on Wednesdays - sometimes with
her mother and sister. Fifteen cards, played simultaneously, keep
her blotter busy.
Bruce Spellman, a bingo regular, checks the electronic board for the
last number called.
Beverley Curtis, a native of Australia now living in Great Bridge,
travels to the Witchduck hall where she sits behind a glass
partition in the non-smoking section.
Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
Cindy Vann took the day off from her business to play bingo - and
she came prepared for the crowded room with a battery-operated fan.
A GROWING SPORT
Gross receipts for bingo in Virginia Beach according to the
city's Department of Finance:
1990: $17,106,758
1991: $19,255,280
1992: $23,152,644
1993: $24,177,861
1994: $24,459,793
BEACH BINGO HALLS
Witchduck Bingo, 660 N. Witchduck Road. 499-2267.
Aragona Recreation Center, 595 DeLaura Lane. 497-9908.
Bingo Palace, 444 S. Lynnhaven Road. 431-1448.
City Hall Bingo, 620 Baker Road. 473-3850.
Independence Hall, 4816 Columbus St. 499-4816.
Lynnhaven Bingo Center, 2686 Lishelle Place. 468-9154.
Pembroke Hall Bingo, 4815 Virginia Beach Blvd. 552-0709.
Decision Bingo, 952 Indian Lakes Blvd. 495-8510.
Church bingo is held at: St. Gregory's, 5345 Virginia Beach
Blvd., 497-8330; Church of the Ascension, 4853 Princess Anne Road,
495-1886; Star of the Sea, 308 15th St., 428-9510; St. Nicholas, 621
First Colonial Road, 422-5600; St. Matthew's, 3316 Sandra Lane,
420-2455.
Roma Lodge, 3097 Magic Hollow Blvd., 468-2029.
Source: Bingo Bulletin, February 1995
by CNB