[Gonzopozo]

Hey - any bingo players out there? Here's soem interesting facts...

The number of bingo players in Colorado have gone down 50% since the casinos opened in the three gaming towns - that's a drop of 1.7 million bingo visits.

The most you can win at a bingo game is $1500 - a limit established in 1958.

There's actually a bill in the House this session (HB 1068) that would increase the big jackpot to $15,000. Not bad - but it probably won't pass this session.

I would love to hear from some bingo enthusiasts!!!

G

[slammer99]

I'm not a bingo player, but I used to be part of a group that ran a bingo session as a fund raiser. For those that don't know, the actual sessions are ran and bankrolled by non-profit groups. The hall owner rents out the sessions to such groups.

The $1500 limit isn't per game but per session. So, if you ran 10 games, as we usually did, you had to split up the $1500 between all the games. A few years back, they started allowing progressives. The progressive jackpot is outside the $1500 limit. But, as I recall, we had a consolation prize if nobody hit the progressive and that did come out of the $1500.

When the progressive was big, we had bigger crowds. So, I would guess that a bigger limit would generate bigger crowds. Bingo has declined from where it used to be. The group has been doing better recently, but I was told that's because some other halls have closed. So, if a bigger limit generated bigger crowds, that would be a positive for the groups doing the sessions.

The downside is that the group has to bankroll the game. Sometimes the games manager groussed if we had a night with big pickle payouts. But, the reality is that a set of pickles is a guaranteed money maker, even if there are bad sessions. Just like a slot machine, which pickles really are. The bingo session can potentially be a money loser if you have a small crowd and the card sales are less than the total payout. For a $1500 limit isn't not too much of a risk. But before you would bank a $15,000 session, you would want to be very sure you were going to get enough players. Not sure how you could do this, but I suspect you'd need some way to ratchet up the payouts with the crowd or over time as the player base built up.

[largefilipino]

I think a large part of the drop in Bingo participants is due to the smoking ban but I quit recently so it's actually been better for me although I don't condone the taking of rights.
Is there any Bingo in Central City or Black Hawk?

[Gonzopozo]

There's no regular (legacy) bingo halls up there. I've seen the rare promotion in a casino (once, I think, at Fortune Valley) and there's always Video Keno (a close cousin).

I agree that the smoking ban has hurt the game in Denver-metro. Thye DID raise the jackpot limits and bingo is still dead.

Regarding the smoking ban - I HATE the government telling me I can't use a LEGAL substance.

(more on that in the SMOKING BAN thread).

G