I spent the late afternoon and early evening working for my local high school athletic booster club at one of my town's many BINGO Halls. As usual, it was an eventful evening.
The regulars were all there. Knowledgeable Lady, Bearded Lady, Large Man, Grousing Lady, Flirting Lady, Dangerously Quiet Lady, and Happy-go-lucky Elderly Catholic Mother all fulfilled their time-honored roles. Large man was playing a game this week with all of the Instant ticket sellers. Whenever the sellers had just finished selling out a box of tickets, he would waddle up to one of us and demand twenty tickets. When informed that we had just sold out, he would bitterly and loudly complain and proclaim that he "...wouldn't never buy any tickets from y'all agin, 'cause use all crooks." Large Man played this game three times this evening.
Bearded Lady is a large woman with long, stringy, greasy black hair that frames the black beard on her face. She gets around with the aid of a walker. She was on a roll tonight. She won several games and drew the top $500 prize on one of our instant ticket games. I overheard another player ask her where she played BINGO last night, and she replied, "I didn't play no BINGO last night. I played the slots at _____ [name was indistinguishable], and I won $1,600.
Flirting Lady was interacting with a Truck Driver Man sitting a table away from her. By the end of the evening, the two of them were carrying out a loud courtship between ball calls, much to the chagrin of Grousing Lady.
Dangerously Quiet Lady discretely called me over late in the evening and politely asked me to exchange a piece of BINGO paper her friend had marked accidentally. Her request was nice enough, but it was delivered with an eerie undertone that made me want to take care of the issue promptly so as not to provoke her.
I've known Happy-go-lucky Elderly Catholic Mother for many years. In fact, we used to work together at the local amusement park back when I was a teen and she was a middle-aged mother of six trying to make ends meet. Before the games began, I went over and listened to her family update. She was worried about her son who just had heart surgery. We spoke of old times,grand kids, and fear.
Knowledgeable Lady sits in row one in front of the caller. She's always there, and is greatly respected by every other player and worker in the house. Today, she was sporting a shoulder harness with her right arm immobilized. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that she had broken her humerus. Of course I then told her that that wasn't funny. I asked her how she broke it, and she replied, "Wild Sex...all three minutes of it."
As I spent my evening selling instant game tickets at a dollar a piece, I was amazed at the amount of money being spent by these players on this extra game. All told there were 69 paid players at the BINGO hall this evening, and those 69 players purchased five boxes of instant tickets. The game boxes had varying amounts of tickets in them, but I figure that all told, we sold about 7,000 tickets. Now doing simple math, it's easy to figure that about $100 per person was spent on instant tickets over and above what was spent by each person just to purchase their BINGO packets.
More amazingly, is the fact that only about 1/4 to 1/2 of the players were buying our tickets. That means that those instant participants must have really been loaded with cash when they walked in the door. After considering how much these people were spending tonight coupled with the fact that most of them play several times a week, I just can't figure out where they are all getting their cash. They don't appear to be wealthy or particularly likely to have a job that would command top salaries; yet, they spent incredible sums of money every week.
It's more than just BINGO. It's life.
The regulars were all there. Knowledgeable Lady, Bearded Lady, Large Man, Grousing Lady, Flirting Lady, Dangerously Quiet Lady, and Happy-go-lucky Elderly Catholic Mother all fulfilled their time-honored roles. Large man was playing a game this week with all of the Instant ticket sellers. Whenever the sellers had just finished selling out a box of tickets, he would waddle up to one of us and demand twenty tickets. When informed that we had just sold out, he would bitterly and loudly complain and proclaim that he "...wouldn't never buy any tickets from y'all agin, 'cause use all crooks." Large Man played this game three times this evening.
Bearded Lady is a large woman with long, stringy, greasy black hair that frames the black beard on her face. She gets around with the aid of a walker. She was on a roll tonight. She won several games and drew the top $500 prize on one of our instant ticket games. I overheard another player ask her where she played BINGO last night, and she replied, "I didn't play no BINGO last night. I played the slots at _____ [name was indistinguishable], and I won $1,600.
Flirting Lady was interacting with a Truck Driver Man sitting a table away from her. By the end of the evening, the two of them were carrying out a loud courtship between ball calls, much to the chagrin of Grousing Lady.
Dangerously Quiet Lady discretely called me over late in the evening and politely asked me to exchange a piece of BINGO paper her friend had marked accidentally. Her request was nice enough, but it was delivered with an eerie undertone that made me want to take care of the issue promptly so as not to provoke her.
I've known Happy-go-lucky Elderly Catholic Mother for many years. In fact, we used to work together at the local amusement park back when I was a teen and she was a middle-aged mother of six trying to make ends meet. Before the games began, I went over and listened to her family update. She was worried about her son who just had heart surgery. We spoke of old times,grand kids, and fear.
Knowledgeable Lady sits in row one in front of the caller. She's always there, and is greatly respected by every other player and worker in the house. Today, she was sporting a shoulder harness with her right arm immobilized. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that she had broken her humerus. Of course I then told her that that wasn't funny. I asked her how she broke it, and she replied, "Wild Sex...all three minutes of it."
As I spent my evening selling instant game tickets at a dollar a piece, I was amazed at the amount of money being spent by these players on this extra game. All told there were 69 paid players at the BINGO hall this evening, and those 69 players purchased five boxes of instant tickets. The game boxes had varying amounts of tickets in them, but I figure that all told, we sold about 7,000 tickets. Now doing simple math, it's easy to figure that about $100 per person was spent on instant tickets over and above what was spent by each person just to purchase their BINGO packets.
More amazingly, is the fact that only about 1/4 to 1/2 of the players were buying our tickets. That means that those instant participants must have really been loaded with cash when they walked in the door. After considering how much these people were spending tonight coupled with the fact that most of them play several times a week, I just can't figure out where they are all getting their cash. They don't appear to be wealthy or particularly likely to have a job that would command top salaries; yet, they spent incredible sums of money every week.
It's more than just BINGO. It's life.
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