Posts tagged Non-Profit

Got bingo? Fair mainstay may not survive.

Got bingo? Fair mainstay may not survive

BY SPENCER HATTON
FOR THE YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

For sale: 75 brightly colored, numbered pingpong balls and an electronic display panel that automatically shows the last bingo ball called.

While it’s not official, the clock is ticking on Kiwanis bingo at the Central Washington State Fair. Today could very well be the last time fairgoers will hear the familiar cry of “B-5″ under the big tent.

Bingo has been a mainstay at the fair for some 35 years and a key fundraiser for the downtown Yakima Kiwanis Club. It reaches back to the mid-1970s, when Greg Stewart, general manager of the fair, joined the club. At the time, Kiwanis members had raised funds for its youth activities by holding massive, multi-day yard sales. It was time-consuming and netted very little in return for the hundreds of hours spent marking up items for sale. Stewart offered an alternative: How about running bingo games at the fair?

Kiwanis members jumped at the chance and never looked back. During the late 1970s and ’80s, bingo consistently netted around $20,000 during the fair. It was the only game in town. Las Vegas-style casinos were still far off in the future.

Competition soon arrived as other nonprofits jumped on the bingo bandwagon. Besides numerous church bingo games, the YWCA and Yakima’s OIC of Washington turned to bingo as a way of bolstering their budgets. Even the Yakima Greenway Foundation dipped its toes into the revenue stream by starting a bingo hall in Terrace Heights, not far from its pathway along the Yakima River.

Though Kiwanis bingo was still holding its own, there was something missing. I joined the club in 1983 and quickly realized our games lacked pizzazz. At the time, we only played the time-honored straight bingo game — five in a row, horizontal, vertical or diagonal. For the occasional player who stopped by for a game or two, it was fun. But for us working the bingo tent, it got to be mind-numbing.

So a small group of club members, led by yours truly, checked out what other bingo halls had to offer. That’s when we came up with a series of new games — Postage Stamp, Five in a Corner — and a real showstopper, Blackout Bingo. The game requires the winner to cover each of the 25 squares on the bingo card. Then we went one step further and upped the ante by offering a cash payout of $1,000 to anyone who blacked out in 50 numbers or less. Imagine how many elephant ears that could buy at the fair?

However, it was not an easy sale. For a club that was once content to hold yard sales, the blackout idea was met with rampant skepticism. “Are you crazy?” came the club’s reply.

I finally convinced members that the chance of winning blackout bingo in 50 numbers is ridiculously low. I likened it to being struck by lightning. In fact, you are nearly 40 times more likely to be whacked by a thunderbolt in your lifetime (odds are 1 in 6,250) than to be declared a winner at blackout (1 in 240,000).

Of course, the odds go out the window when the bingo caller screws up. It happened one night not long after we started the $1,000 payout. It nearly caused a riot.

Harold Mattson, a longtime member of the club, was calling the game of blackout. He was one of the club’s veteran bingo day captains, but sadly his eyesight wasn’t what it used to be.

When Harold called out the 50th number, someone screamed “Bingo!” My heart sank. How could this be?

As it turned out, Harold had called a wrong number earlier in the game. He confused G-56 for G-58. The guy who figured he had won a thousand dollars wasn’t too happy to hear he was still a loser. It also didn’t help that he was a big, burly guy with biceps the size of plump watermelons. He started yelling at Harold. Then other bingo players began hollering at the sore loser. Things were getting ugly in a hurry.

That’s when I stepped forward.

“N-32″ echoed through the loudspeakers. I decided to get the blackout game back on track. Grumbling persisted but mutiny was averted.

Even adding the excitement — and near rioting — of blackout bingo didn’t stop the downward trend in revenue. From the “salad days” of the 1980s and early 1990s, receipts from bingo continued to plummet. In the 10-year span from 1999 to 2009, net profits dropped in half, from $13,000 to just $6,490.

And while bingo revenue has swooned for Kiwanis, receipts at Legends Casino in Toppenish have soared. The Yakama Nation recently reported annual revenue at nearly $70 million, or about $192,000 a day. Contrast that with the best day that Kiwanis did last year — a meager $2,200.

But hope springs eternal. I will be at State Fair Park this afternoon under the big tent, passing out bingo cards to the dedicated few still hoping to win at blackout.

We did have lightning strike several years ago when someone took home the $1,000 payout. I should have seen that as an early sign of what lay ahead for Kiwanis bingo.

Can lightning strike again under the bingo tent? According to the Guinness World Records, it certainly can. A Virginia park ranger once was struck seven times by lightning during a 35-year span … and survived.

Again, more bad news for Kiwanis bingo.