Bingo Chat Rooms
February 14, 2006
If you spend enough time in the chat rooms when playing bingo, there's a good chance that you'll make dozens of new friends. Video slot machines at Saratoga Gaming and Raceway are eating away at bingo revenues of nonprofit and charitable organizations, causing some to shut down and others to try to sweeten their pots. In an effort to reclaim betting customers who abandoned bingo for the Saratoga Springs online bingo, Clifton Park Elks 2466 asked the Town Board on Monday to change town code and allow the lodge to increase its bingo jackpots from $1,000 to $3,000 per evening, the maximum the state will allow. The Elks donates a portion of its bingo-raised money to veterans groups, Boy Scouts and others.
"The racino has kicked the heck out of us," Elks trustee Philip Dana said. Bingo player attendance is down at least 33 percent, and revenues declined up to 40 percent since the hall opened two years ago, he said. St. Clement's parish in Saratoga Springs will end bingo in August because of a loss in income since it opened. Its bingo income is applied to running the St. Clement's Regional Catholic School, which has students from kindergarten through sixth grade.
"Bingo has seen a very dramatic drop. It's not really worth it anymore," the Rev. Joseph Tizio, parish pastor, said. Traditional bingo parlors cannot compete with the glitzy games of chance and potential prize rewards of the Internet bingo chat rooms, which earned $103.6 million last year from 1,324 video lottery terminals.
A grandmother has won more than $105,000 playing bingo and talking in chat rooms. The 62-year-old woman, who doesn't want to be identified, won at the Gala Club at the Greenbridge retail park. She said: "I can't get my head around it. I haven't slept properly since, and my 18-year-old grandson keeps on saying get a Ferrari Nan.'" She won the money on January 26, scooping the national bingo prize of $100,000, a regional prize of $5,300 and the club prize of $400. She completed a full house in 36 numbers, the lowest call in any of the 500 bingo halls playing nationwide.
