Bingo: Faith, Hope & Charity (CBC Documentary by Mark Wright & Naomi Bock)

bingo is a game of chance which many people play the object marked the numbers exactly as they say he doesn't like for people to look at his cards because he's very superstitious ali give me that for good luck she said grandma this is gonna make you win she's in las vegas bingo's involved in the church basement so you've got the religious aspect involved in it i don't know really about other faiths in catholicism but having some fun with gambling there's no sin against that this was not something that my grandmother or i had done when it was church related this was actually gambling anybody who goes into that hall with their last few dollars hoping to win are crazy gambling is that 34 letter world hope when i was hoping please let me win it was hopeless hope about 80 of our income comes from gambling bingos of the 6 200 charities that are part of our organization and dependent on bingo funds if bingo was made illegal tomorrow half of them would be either out of business or seriously considering getting out of business don't play bingo tonight mother stay home with daddy and me don't play bingo tonight mother we need your cup for me the knights of columbus run the oldest bingo hall still operating in canada the catholic club turned this ballroom into a bingo parlor in the early 50s to raise money for local charities we open our doors every morning at 7 30 people come in believe it or not they start coming in 7 30 8 o'clock they have their seats they know each other by name they play their little card games and then our snack bar opens they have breakfast the charities that we have here all benefit from it and then of course it all trickles back down when the charities whichever one it is do their work out in the community there's a little rhyme which explains the catholic attitude towards bingo and the social fun that goes with it wherever the catholic sun doth shine there's music laughter and good red wine at least i've always found it so benedict domino thanks be to god [Music] i live in the seniors building and to get over the house is great with me as long as i've had enough money to play bingo i'm fine i'm sad [Music] yeah it used to be chip and go and now it's dabber right i like the dabber it's exciting i just used a lot of crystal stones and just glued them on it took like six hours just forever i'll never do it again [Music] [Music] all right [Music] [Music] [Music] down the street from the knights of columbus a different kind of bingo is in progress raising funds for the people with aids foundation [Applause] [Music] hi boys hi girls you can go to the knights of columbus and win 5 000 um if you're lucky here it's a lot more fun [Laughter] i went to the knights of columbus was playing real big old 69 was the number nine [Music] [Applause] they didn't like that i don't know have you been to a regular bingo you know it's i-22 oh 70. and they've got like 15 cards and they're going crazy and oh should be the name of the game because everybody says when somebody else doesn't binge [Music] i remember used to go to church bingos the jackpot used to be an ashtray and the big full house bingo at night used to be a couple of tickets to the neighborhood movies and we enjoyed it that was like but it's grown out from that proportion today bingo took its place with the gambling atmosphere bingo may have a historical image as a small time church game but it was a big time commercial success right from the beginning [Music] in 1929 a new york toy manufacturer discovered a game called bino at a country fair he gave the game a snazzier name and sold it to north american parishes promoters brought in the business the law said something that bingo is illegal except if it is run in a fairground or carnival and or on an occasional basis for a charitable religious organization don't play bingo tonight mother stay home with daddy and me word occasional still all in a gray area and we started running bingo seven nights a week the churches were making so much money they made us an offer we couldn't refuse which is a reversal on the uh godfather [Music] bingo fever swept canada during the second world war raging on through the decades that followed poor daddy sits nightly with tears in his eyes just wondering if you welcome home with in 1969 the criminal code was amended allowing provinces to officially license bingo to charities today it's a gambling institution without a gambling image mostly because of its catholic connections for north american catholics bingo has been a rather important source of revenue generation to assist a variety of church and social projects historically since the beginning of the christian church christians have been concerned not only with quote saving souls but with saving and caring for whole persons body and soul and that has led to an enormous investment of resources the end never justifies the means if you're structuring something upon greed and avarice and covetousness which are really anti-social forces you can't get good coming out of that you know there's an old saying that says you can't do god's work in the devil's way [Music] what am i gonna do with all this money that i won last night's bingo game turned out to be more than just fun people may not realize how big bingo is in canada for example every month we produced over one billion bingo cards and annually our company throughout the world produces close to 50 billion bingo cards and to give an idea how big that is or how much that is if you just took all the bingo cards and laid them end to end it would loop from the earth to the moon and back six times [Music] legend has it a columbia university math professor went insane after expanding the number combinations for early bingo cards today canadians wager 10 times more per capita than americans on bingo two and a half billion dollars a year comes into halls like this one owned by bingo country the biggest chain in canada we bring in people into our facilities they walk in and they go wow i didn't know bingo was like this and they're just shocked that our facilities the number of people and everything else that we have within the bingo hall [Music] how the product is played the customers that are there the seating you know and they're just shocked just literally shocked bingo country owns the hall but by law the charities run the games and make the most money this bingo funds the seeds of hope a charity that teaches computer skills to people with problems getting work fundraising these days is so difficult people expect something in return for their donation phone campaigns door-to-door campaigns all heavily heavily used and the one advantage to bingo is people are going in playing the game probably don't even realize they're donating to charity and having some entertainment for the dollars that they're contributing canadian charities get an average of 60 percent of the profits after prizes are paid out about 400 million dollars a year as of now really bingo is about the only financial support the seats of hope has the greatest benefit is that it's reasonably reliable you know six months in advance approximately what the revenues are going to be and how much effort is going to have to be made to raise them there's a core customer base people that love playing bingo and we'll go to great lengths to play bingo and if you've been in the halls you know you know that [Music] statistics canada reports bingo players are gambling's biggest spenders per capita yet they also have the lease to spend predominantly bingo players are among the poorest canadians did you want to go to bingo this afternoon well if you can let me know i gotta go pick up matthew in a bit well i worked in the restaurant industry since i was 18 until a couple of years ago losing my job it was like oh my god i have no lifeline now what am i going to do and normally i would have just gone right back out there and got another job at another restaurant but one of the last things my uh general manager said to me when i was walking out was i don't recommend that you go back into this business and that kind of threw me for a loop i had to go on assistance and that wasn't a very pleasant thing because uh it's something i never you know planned on doing cindy first played bingo with her mother when she was 16. but she only started playing regularly after she lost her job it's an escape from the pressures of raising three kids alone on eleven hundred dollars a month per social assistance income boy it'd be really nice to win the big one like the 3 000 jackpot that would take care of all matthew's hockey uh i could finish paying off the dentist bill [Applause] i allow myself maybe a hundred dollars a month like that's my money to sort of do what i want with you know if i i could buy clothes i guess but once that money's gone that's it there's no more bingo for that month so what's the most you'd play in a week the most i've played in a week like you know if i'm winning or something like that oh god i've been known to go like two three sessions like go in and let go you know lunch go at seven go at ten so and then go back again the next day or something [Music] [Music] didn't go to work uh random and one extra please b14 it's a different kind of thinking when you're playing the game you're not thinking about like geez you know brian needs braces or you know where am i going to get the money for hockey or you can just sort of tune out and you're just concentrating on playing the game the numbers bingo players fall into a different category of gambling and when they use the word passive that yes they can be very excited about playing bingo but you're not having to demonstrate your skill to someone it's all based on luck rather than for those who are an active gambler which is somebody who is at table games who is playing blackjack which is a lot of bravado saying i'm the best and i'm going to beat the house and this is very challenging and i have to win because if i don't win then i'm going to be a failure whereas the individual who is there and who is playing bingo [Music] doesn't have to be reinforced about their low self-esteem see what i mean i can't win see it's fixed it's fixed as usual i never win no i come here because uh i like giving them my money you take a chance you know you come here to try to win but usually i don't win very much 10 35 i'm not a winner at bingo no you just sit patiently and hope for the best hope you call my number but i don't get ever get excited about it you know mike harris he promised the senior citizens a race you know when we're going to get the race in the year 2001 so i got to come here and try to get some money you can't go in to a bingo hall and not recognize that the people that are playing the bingo are the very people who have the least amount of money to put down on something like that i think they take advantage of people they take advantage of the fact that people don't have enough income to survive and are willing to to shell out you know a few bucks for being a card for for the the possibility of of scoring big when you know in the end it's the organization or the charity or whoever is is you know organizing the event that's pocketing most of the money [Music] to make money for children's charities the variety club owns two bingo halls in toronto both are located in low-income neighborhoods [Laughter] i never ask anyone what their income is when they come in so i wouldn't really know what lower income was what is lower income did someone who earned fifty thousand dollars a year if someone has made a purchase of something um to me that states that they've got money and they can afford it we're here to help children who need our help and if we can't help the weakest in our society there's something wrong with us there are customers that are playing in the halls from all income levels and i think it's very unfair to to put a stereotype to the kind of income level of a bingo player certainly olc research has shown that it's it's middle income and above which is your average person this research in ontario lottery corporation study actually tells a different story bingo draws its highest numbers from the lowest income brackets in toronto for example bingo halls are overwhelmingly found in areas with the highest concentrations of people living below the poverty line certainly we are attendance does increase for maybe an eight or ten day period at the end of the month you know you're really going to be busy and what's what happens at the end what happens at the end of the month you're really gonna drag that out of me aren't you uh well there's a lot of welfare checks come out everyone seems to have more money so a lot of that money uh disposable income would come into most bengal halls so why did you come today you guys are going to check today so you get the chance to come bingo non-disability hey five you got enough you pay your rent and food and every time you come here once that's it you're broke well i'm on low income myself and i usually wait till the end of the month if i don't win at least i know it goes to charity for those who are less fortunate than i am there has been expressed concern without people who perhaps can't afford to spend their money at bingoes and that it's patently inappropriate or unfair for governments charities and commercial operators to to benefit from that type of activity the i think the response is relatively simple and clear the activity is is legal under the criminal code a simple statement of fact and under the provincial legislation but i think more importantly those who have that particular point of view are really trying to in their own minds legislate and dictate what people can and can't do with their money thank you cindy you shouldn't be here that thirty dollars could be going towards the dentist i never thought i'd be in this kind of boat you know with like no money kind of thing you know i always had a job i always took care of myself i always took care of the kids so now now it's kind of scary really quite aware that a lot of the people that are playing bingo or don't have a lot of money and they're spending it on this apparently is there is their recreation and as i said the only rationale for it is that it's going to a good cause of hope started up in 1991 the mandate of seeds of hope was to basically to help people overcome employment barriers as they're laid off their job ends they come into the world now and they find that technology has passed them by and they find it's quite a different world out there now where almost every job requires some kind of computer skills double click on my computer i need to get back to work i spoke to my worker about going back to school or getting some kind of like career you know i need to have some i guess some sit down with somebody and say okay you know this is what you should be looking at or doing our average student has been unemployed about 18 months any self-confidence that they had is gone they were working people and now they're they're relying on the social assistance system for their lives you know even though i'm a 39 and i'm a parent and and i strive for you know my kids not to be insecure and to to be secure i'm still really insecure and i don't know what i'm good at geez i thought i was doing good when i needed four yeah boy i gotta do something with my life look what it's come to bingo here we are a non-profit organization that is trying to help people on the margins of our society people who've been marginalized and in some respects we are using uh money the profits okay from bingo's when if if you look at the people who attend bingos they are probably not much better off than the people we're dealing with here the people that we're trying to help here whenever you know what and everything whenever it's ever high like that it always goes like that could have been going home with 500 bucks each instead we're going home with zippo when i walk out of there it's like well you know i usually say to sherry like geez why didn't you know g51 come out like once i'm out of there it's like i want to just forget about it like i just don't want to dwell on the fact that i lost again i'm a loser big loser none and the last game sure i needed b9 like for a while she got down on this card really fast she only needed five numbers and slowly called them and she got down she needed just b9 but he called three and one not hers so she wasn't too happy she was actually uh pretty good today she didn't do any of her rocking and she didn't do any of her praying that she normally does i didn't know she did that she does pray to the bingo god to give her her numbers you don't do that no maybe inside my head so do you want to play bingo when you're of age well my mom's always she's always she told me like when i was little that like um when i turned 14 she would take me to the bingo mall because i was because i would like look 16 and then so i turned like 14 i was like oh can i go to bingo now and she's like no they change the age to 18. so i gotta wait like another year but i don't know i don't think i'm gonna be i don't know i'll have to see if i'm like as into it as she is because i don't know but i just want to try it because she seems to you know get a kick out of it but i don't know if i'll be so addicted but ashley always makes a joke that i need bingo and you know anonymous yeah they're gonna go book me into bingo anonymous there are a lot of people addicted to bingo but it's better being addicted bingo than growing casinos and being addicted to that a lot of people are addicted to it i was for a while well if you look at the way that most bingo players play bingo it is often referred to as soft gaming and which is a i guess a strange term but what basically is meant by soft gaming is you can't chase your losses if you go to a casino and you lose a couple hundred bucks on the poker tables you can go and you can go and get another 200 bucks and you can lose it again you can't do that in bingo there are only so many bingo cards you can play when you go to bingo you think it's nickel and dime but it's surprising how much that money adds up when it comes to some women are spending sixty to eighty dollars a session and if they stay for three four sessions a day it adds up i was asked by someone who was a casino player you know who played big money how can you possibly lose a house playing bingo and i said well i did it it really wasn't that hard i was about um 25 000 in debt and my husband went to buy himself a new truck and he was going to pay cash for it and and i had to tell him that the cash wasn't there that there was no money in the bank for his truck and i managed to to lie my way out of that i just mismanaged bills and um you know the house taxes i had let slide in this and i came up with just all kinds of stories i had no self-esteem i was lying cheating stealing you know whatever i had to do i did we took out a loan to pay off those debts and as soon as that you know we had a loan and i had no more debt so to speak i mean it was all in one big loan um that kind of was you know gave me the go ahead to just wow i can go crazy to some degree i would say it cost me my marriage my self-respect i don't know exact dollar amounts um probably about forty thousand dollars though at the end losing big is all relative for bingo players with little to spend in the first place it's a short fall to the bottom just part of the cycle of poverty no conclusive research has ever been done on problem bingo playing but conservative estimates reveal that problem gambling affects between 10 and 15 of players on average that's a quarter of a million canadians with bingo addiction problems if you would take a magnet a symbolic magnet and sniff out all compulsive and pathological gamblers then a large number of the gaming industry would go broke because that is one of the significant difference that they are the highest players no one wants to voluntarily depart with his profit now if you have a bingo operator and he says i have a business i do this what do i care so we have to convince them yes you do care [Music] today only one company in the bingo industry is planning an official policy to deal with problem gambling i'm not aware of whether or not um someone has that type of problem right now uh because it's just an issue that we uh we didn't pay a lot of attention to i mean in terms of of uh you know recognizing it and that's really why we're getting into the program bingo country's responsible gambling program will train employees to refer customers to hotlines and counselors but only if the customer comes asking for help we're taking a reasonably conservative approach in terms of our literature i mean we're not going to be having huge posters all over the place which is going to scare people um in fact at this point we're only really thinking of developing uh pamphlets pamphlets which which would be uh you know reasonably isolated but but but still accessible to the customers and so forth when they come into the facilities i haven't seen cases i can honestly say hand on my heart no i haven't but people have told me there are people with addictions but if we've noticed it here then we would take specific action to it well you see the nice thing about when you do that though is you win three times as much or twice as much depending on what about the people who have walked away with three hundred thousand four hundred thousand five hundred thousand who have helped their families in a positive way you see everybody wants to concentrate the negative why don't we look at the positive i'm fed up with people telling me nasty bad stories about it i'd rather someone tell me the good stories about it i knew star has been cited scientists are calling it a superstar and it's headed this way calculations are it will hit ontario bingo halls it's the biggest thing to hit bingo halls in years minimum 25 000 jackpot new superstar bingo halls across ontario are hooking up to play superstar bingo a giant electronically linked game run by the provincial government the industry wanted bigger games but only the government can legally operate computerized bingo alaska superstar yep hope it's a winner the other day it was 500 and something thousands someone indian center wanted to win and 10. thank you very much because of our mandate which is to raise money for government and its broader uses once we get involved in the activity and actually make what we believe to be a significant contribution that there then should be a component of profit for the government hopefully we can come up with ideas that will increase the pie for everybody then draw new players in tonight's game is very exciting because 625 000. [Music] i never won that kind of money before i never seen that amount before but if i didn't well like use it wisely i wouldn't i wouldn't just come here and blow it in the bingo no way i'd take it and run it guys like me i work my you know what every day and it's nice to have a chance to win a little bit extra cash you know have a better future for myself well if you get the lucky carriage you'll get it today but if you don't you won't get it i'm hoping to get get it or the constellation either one you know i'm hoping to that's the same with the rest here too with superstar bingo many of players like the fact that there's big jackpots and i think in spite of of bingo players not liking to change very much the game has been reasonably well received in a year and a half with almost 80 million dollars in sales last year that's a lot of people buying the game whether they like it or not it is drawing in people with hype they're bigger on pushing their game than we are we're not about to run around saying here go ahead buy another card increase your chances and yet the government will or the government agency responsible for the bingo will send a fax saying here are different ways you can get people to buy more cards they have an average on what people spend a night they want to get that average up here's a way to do it they can be slightly ruthless some would find it ruthless that all superstars big bonus events have been scheduled right after the social assistance checks come out there is absolutely no way that poor people are targeted for uh any of the games that we offer um and certainly uh in terms of um of superstar bingo or bingo generally we we produce a product that we think is attractive to the people who want to play bingo here we go well because it's under government gaming we didn't have the same kind of restrictions superstar was really was just set up to be a first step in looking at some innovation to the industry superstar bingo is the movement into electronic gaming as we see it electronic bingo creates a limitless opportunity to gamble today they can only play physically so much and they get done and then you know if they had a chair on wheels they'd run it back and forth across the table might be able to play more cards when they play on electronics it breaks those boundaries they can play a lot more than what you can physically do but i mean that's the excitement about electronics the industry's reassurances that bingo deals in soft gaming crumble in the path of its ambitions but that just means fewer obstructions to the money flooding in for canada's charities we don't feel good about it but it keeps us going we've justified this in our minds by saying well by believing that the good we do is greater than the harm that the bengals may be doing [Music] we're not doing anything wrong we're not doing anything illegal if we were doing something that terrible these people wouldn't be coming in here they wouldn't be participating it's a fun afternoon or a fun evening and the charities get the opportunity to derive some revenue from it so long may the customer keep coming [Applause] [Music] the public seems to accept that as a form of having revenue raised by government if they're going to participate anyhow we might as well manage it control it and turn the proceeds over to what we view to be good causes would people be going and working in these smoky halls if there was some other way to get the money to do the work how those things should be funded shouldn't they be taxed from the upper level of society yeah but uh is the canadian population the ontario population willing to pay direct taxation to help don't think so gambling obviously is big okay the government is taking in hundreds of millions of dollars okay there are those that would argue well that's keeping our taxes down but is that the way that we want to fund our society is through gambling is that what we really want to do is fun things through gambling fund our community agencies our our community services through gambling because that is what is happening now [Music] oh a little girl sat on her daddy's knee holding her broken door her mother was fixing herself for a spring down at the community hall don't play bingo tonight mother stay home with daddy and me don't play bingo tonight father poor daddy sits nightly with tears in his eyes just wondering if you're welcome hey brian didn't work

Channel: Mark Wright

Views: 33,879

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Id: Ll71NznHdEI

Length: 39min 32sec (2372 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 08 2022