XL Cover Story: Bingo!

In halls around Austin, marking the cards is still a game for the seasoned set, but more and more younger players are finding fun in numbers

Bingo!

With a few exceptions, B-12 Bingo on Ben White Boulevard draws an older crowd.

Rosa Mata, left, and Rosa Maria Aguado are cashiers and card-sellers at B-12.

'One gets a sixth sense about bingo,' says Jeff Georgi, a number-caller for 18 years who works at both B-12 and River City Bingo.

Players at River City Bingo take the game seriously, surrounding themselves with good luck charms. With a possible $750 prize at stake, luck is a cherished commodity.

Recently engaged bingo enthusiasts Regina Del Pico and Andy Rihn pore over their sheet at a River City Bingo midnight game. River City is most crowded for the midnight games, when younger players make an appearance and players can bring their own beer.

Later, during a night game at American Bingo, a woman sits next to a small Bugs Bunny doll in a Santa hat, silently looking from her cards to the television monitor. Little Buddhas, toy elephants, stars and Virgin Marys comfort other players through their tense hopes that no one else will call the lucky word too soon.

And on a Sunday afternoon at Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon, dozens of raucous ladies and gentlemen holler and wave their Lone Stars at Red the Chicken while he decides which lucky number to bless with his detritus.

It's gambling at all three Austin venues, but ranked on the lowest strata of such vices. It's social, although mostly in a quiet, everyone-stuck-in-the-same-hall sort of way. It's becoming fashionable with Austin's young crowd, yet, like the previous rages for swing dancing, old-line fraternal clubs and Betty Paige -- it's taken with a tincture of irony.

It's biiiiingoooo!!!

"Bingo players are all ages," says Estella Rosas, who sells cards for the pulltab games at River City Bingo. "Young and old, rich and poor."

One look around a daytime bingo hall suggests otherwise. The stereotypes about bingoers -- older, female, mid-to-lower-middle-class -- fit all too easily.

Young Austinites -- the game's next generation -- come out at night, when bingo is a hobby. Daytime, bingo is a lifestyle.

With the exception of Chicken (Expletive) Bingo, which is not regulated by the Texas Lottery Commission, one perception persists: The bingo hall as a stuffy, smoky room where mature, bored citizens win little ceramic statues.

"I don't think young people are that aware of bingo," says Jeff Georgi, a caller at B-12 and River City Bingo. "They think of church bingo or carnival bingo."

But come on Saturday for midnight bingo, says Cindy Hello, another River City pulltab seller. That's when twentysomethings invade River City, and the hall is most crowded. That's when they can bring their own beer, too.

Thursday evenings, a sizable group of friends in their mid-20s or early 30s come to B-12 in South Austin, and have for a year, though they say none of them has ever won.

One of the clutch, Chris Stanley, a youthful looking online sales manager, says they start Thursday nights partying with a game of bingo, sipping beer and playing made-up drinking games that include a toast every time they are shushed by the more serious gamblers.

They've discovered that bingo is a bona fide subculture -- a way of life for many -- and from the six main Austin halls emerge visions of humanity's little quirks and charms.

Ready, set, play

In general, bingo games are played in sets of five and last about an hour. Five game sheets -- grouped in the order they'll be played -- cost approximately $4 or $5. An extra dollar often buys an optional game that occurs between the standard ones.

Each sheet is played once per game, with 12 cards per sheet, allowing 60 chances to win for every five dollars spent. The maximum payout for a bingo game is $750, and most halls pay $200 to $750 per game.

In 2004, Texans played bingo 21.5 million times, won $443 million in prizes and passed along $29.8 million to Texas charities -- a fraction of the state's lottery profits. Bingo has benefited charities by $773.6 million since it was legalized in 1980.

The Texas lottery, though operated by a contracted firm, is a product of the state government and its hunger for nontax revenue. Bingo was not the state's idea, but it is heavily regulated.

Publisher Bob Reutlinger points out in the January edition of Bingo Bugle -- an industry newsletter -- such heavy regulations keep bingo from competing fairly with other forms of gaming. A Reutlinger story, "A Fight for Survival," questions whether bingo can endure the 15,000 to 20,000 video lottery terminals proposed for Texas racetracks and other locations.

The Charitable Bingo Operations Division of the Texas Lottery Commission estimates that, depending on their number and location, video terminals could result in a reduction of bingo revenue anywhere from 41 percent to 73 percent.

For a good cause

Sometimes it's easy to forget that bingo is actually gambling. But, in a state with a rock-hard anti-gambling lobby, bingo has flown under most radars because it directly benefits worthy causes.

After expenses, a percentage of the profits from bingo games goes to charity, and funds may only be spent in Texas, which means players cannot designate profits go to tsunami relief or Amnesty International. Through bingo, some Austin organizations raise significant income -- groups such as AIDS Care and Assistance, Suburban Northland Alcoholic Foundation, Texas Paralyzed Veterans of America, along with churches, schools and research groups. Charities can become licensed to conduct their own games or they can approach halls to become a designated beneficiary.

Years ago, bingo in Texas was associated primarily with the Catholic Church -- in contrast to the anti-drinking, anti-dancing, anti-gambling dominant Baptists. Nowadays, it benefits mostly smaller, nonreligious groups.

"A lot of these charitable organizations -- all they have is the money they make from bingo," Thompson says.

So it's five dollars to sit at a big table, hang out, drink beer, chat -- and possibly win $750. And your money goes to charity. What's not to like?

The beauty of simplicity

Stanley, 31, says he has seen more players of his age and younger in the past year, but thinks gambling via bingo is not edgy enough for the adrenaline junkies in their late teens, early 20s.

One possible reason: There's no reliable strategy for winning. It's less exacting than Texas Hold 'Em -- which still attracts hordes of youngsters -- and less thrilling than racetracks. Face it: Bingo's not very exciting, period.

The young crowds at B-12 play socially rather than passionately, and think of it as the embarkation for their night, instead of the whole night.

"Bingo is a relatively slow-moving game," admits Gary Hello, Cindy's husband and owner of River City. "You can play a slot machine and spend $50 in two minutes. You could spend $50 the whole day on bingo."

Then there's the traditional atmosphere of brow-furrowed concentration. Jon Beall, vice president of the Save Barton Creek Association, which makes about 40 percent of its income from bingo proceeds, says the quieter versions of the game might be too boring for socially minded young people.

There's no loud music, that's for sure. (Note the absence of bingo halls on punky lower Red River Street.)

Stanley and his friend Justin Melvin, a 23-year-old bar manager at Jeffrey's, agree that they used to be shushed more than they are now. "I think people got used to us," Stanley says.

Billy Atkins, the state's director of bingo operations, thinks a Greek night or college-themed night at some of the halls might bring in a younger demographic. Jane Thompson, president of Thompson Allstate Bingo Supply Inc., also thinks creative advertising would help spread the word about the latest bingo incarnations.

"It's changed; it's high-tech now," Georgi says. Computers allow players to play up to 66 cards at a time. But the young people interviewed for this story were not playing anywhere near that many cards. When it's just for fun, old school is better. It's just you, the dauber, the paper and the search.

"We were so in hopes that the electronic devices would attract a much younger crowd," Thompson says. "It has to some degree, but not near where we wanted to be. I don't remember any supplies that are targeted to younger players."

Thompson reveals a new hot pink dauber that features an image of Elvis in his glory days. She says: "Manufacturers deliberately market to the older players because historically, that is who plays."

'One big happy family'

"There have been some proposals discussed by the bingo industry which would authorize additional types of bingo games," Hello says. Some groups have proposed video-style bingo games presented in casino-like atmospheres.

Yet bingo halls have one advantage over more serious casinos: You can gamble where everybody knows your name.

"We're one big happy family here," said Cindy Hello, as her assistant helpfully provides a cushion for an elderly player. Hello congratulates the player on her recent birthday.

And some of the more mature patrons need no special inducements to return regularly.

"It's a pastime. Since I've been retired, I've got nothing to do but play bingo," says Grace Moreno, 69, a former hospital worker. "I won yesterday -- a small one, but I got to yell 'bingo.' "

Moreno says that, unlike some players, she doesn't have a lucky number: "I used to say 39 was my lucky number because I won twice with it, but it's been awhile now."

So how to attract potential players who haven't yet discovered a lucky number? The Bingo Enabling Act, enacted in 1980 to legalize the game, is complicated, strict and sort of a buzz-kill. It makes more than 15 people playing bingo at a party a third-degree felony. Third-degree felonies are punishable by two to 10 years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines.

The Draconian act also kept Houston band El Orbits from giving out a free tube of glue to a bingo winner at the Continental Club five years ago, or from conducting bingo games anymore. Thompson, as an approved distributor, can only sell to nonprofit organizations licensed to operate bingo. "I can't sell to individuals or even people that call and want to have a family reunion and play bingo," she says.

But some hall operators, wrapped in red tape and barely escaping the threat of more popular gambling conduits, still fight the fight because they love bingo.

"We have fun. We try to make it exciting," says Cindy Hello, who met her husband in a bingo hall 15 years ago. "We have the friendliest staff."

River City offers a twist on bingo every month. Once they had a Cajun bash; another night Elvis came to visit.

The staff might be friendly, but the hardcore gamblers are not there to socialize. On any day of the week, a lot of players at Treasure Island, Crossroads, Big Star or the other Austin halls simply stare at their cards or computers, while hushing the happy-go-lucky college crowds.

Georgi says there's a obsession factor with the serious gamers, who line up before the hall's doors open.

"They don't have a life," he says.

"We have ladies that'll buy $50 worth of tabs and they do nothin' but sit here and go like that," Thompson says, ripping an imaginary pulltab with one quick swipe. "They do it that quick. You will be amazed."

"It's a culture; it's a subculture," Beall said. "Some people will play as many bingo games in Austin as they can."

"I've heard some of my customers say 'You know we've got people that look like they're having a hard time getting by but they love to come in and play,' " Thompson says. "But more than anything, bingo is for entertainment. At the same time, I think there are people who are addicted to any form of gambling."

No one, except perhaps the young beer-drinkers, talks when the numbers are being called out. Everyone concentrates on a potential win. Everyone in the room knows someone will win that $750, and if you need to pay the bills, I23 becomes pretty darn important.

Georgi, the self-proclaimed "best caller in Austin," credits his skill to his familiarity with the culture and an understanding of the regulars.

"You have to know what to do and not do," he says. "One gets a sixth sense about bingo, like a sense of when someone's about to win."

And as one who played the game before his 18 years of number-calling, Georgi knows not to acknowledge outside bingo halls that someone won a game. They might owe someone else money.

The younger generation might owe money, too, but it's probably more like a student loan thing. Maybe the under-30 and over-60 crowds can join hands through this low-heat game that has everybody watching the numbers oh so closely.