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Bingo hall a gateway to a good time--
but it's a gamble

A bright orange, neon bingo sign shines through the dark of the night. Just below is the entrance to Gateway Bingo Hall. Two double doors open into a spacious hallway where an abandoned wheelchair sits, the only seating in the hall.

"No loitering" signs hang above three pay phones. Across from the phones along the right wall is a cashier's window. The brown walls and carpeting provide the only color in the hall except for the Easter banner hanging from the ceiling.

An elderly woman passes by slowly, fully dependent on the metal walking stick her left hand grasps and the wooden cane her right hand clutches. Looped around her wrist hangs a light blue chair pad that looks as if it once rested on a dining room chair.

"B-3...O-73...B-6," the caller says from the bingo floor.

"Somebody ought to be hitting it around here," a man says to no one in particular. He hurries to look across the floor to see who the lucky winner will be. His silver and black hair is slicked straight back, and the grooves where the teeth of a comb passed are still visible. His Lee jeans with a 2-inch hem hang an inch above his ankles. Two fingers clasp an inch-long, burning cigarette.

As he peers around the corner, a trail of smoke gives hint to his path. He stops to watch and introduces himself as Tony.

Tony has been coming to Gateway Bingo Hall since it first converted from a bowling alley some seven or eight years ago. Someone asks him how he is doing tonight. "Not winning," he answers. Tony used to come to bowl; now he comes to play bingo. Bowling was cheaper.

The bingo hall is easy to imagine as a bowling alley. The bingo floor, six steps below the snack bar, used to be full of bowling lanes. Now people ready to test their luck fill 60 or 70 tables.

Against the back wall on a stage is the caller who takes each ball as it pops from a plastic cage. "Bingo!" a woman yells from the crowd.

Immediately the silence of hope is broken with sounds of disappointment. The callers rush to load people with more cards. The old cards go into the brown paper grocery bags that sit by each player's chair. Some bags are more than half full. Each card stands as a symbol of money spent at a couple dollars a card. And for a precious few, the cards are a symbol of money won.

Some people hurry to the coffee stands to fill up on the free drinks. Others rush to the snack stand for chili nachos or a slice of chocolate pie. This has been the pattern for the entire night. Paper coffee cups and empty packages of Sweet 'N Low cover the tables. Paper dishes lined with cheese and soggy chips are as common as the ashtrays they compete against for space on the table.

Three rows from the back wall sits a middle-aged couple. In front of the wife lies 15 bingo cards. On top of these sit three toy trolls. Two of the trolls have hot pink hair, and the smallest has bright green hair. Beside them is a figure of Mickey Mouse. "Good luck charms," she says to onlookers, not willing to expose the secret of their good luck. Her fuschia nails match the fuschia ink that she quickly uses to fill in the "free" spaces.

Before the next game begins, her husband takes advantage of the moment to talk about the game. "It's a gamble. You don't stand a chance to come out ahead. It's a rip-off like everything else," he say. He sips his coffee and slips off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. "On the overall picture, you lose money, but it's a pleasant place," he continues. "Might as well just mail a check."

His wife sitting across from him shakes her head. "I haven't heard you say one positive thing," she replies.

"But I said it's a real pleasant place," he recalls.

Ending the conversation, the caller begins the last game of the Friday night session before the Night Owl session begins. "B-7," she calls. The room quiets down. Hushed are the complaints of those who aren't winning. They check their cards for the numbers, hopeful that this will be their lucky game.

Sixty-seven calls later, someone shouts, "Bingo!"--a word of victory only to the speaker. Chairs screech against the tile floor as the players accept defeat for the night.

The hallway quickly fills with people. Loaded with chair pads and good luck charms, they filter out of the double doors into the night. The time is 10:30 p.m. For some couples, their Friday night date has ended. For others, they look forward to the next night and the next night in hopes of yelling, "Bingo!"