Bingo

[Mentholdan]

I have quite a few friends who play Bingo regularly, usually at the big name halls. I find it quite boring but you can get a drink there and food and slots of course. I suppose I've been about 50 times in my life, I'm 62 btw, spending about £20 on average on books. I've never ever won a bean, not one line. Any bingo stories?

[mjl5656]

I agree with you about bingo

also I have noticed that the bingo halls take about 50% profit from each sale of books so not a very good payout even if you win 

[BlindHaze]

Ok, bit of a long story but here we go...

It was my 30th birthday not that long ago and I wanted to do something memorable. We went out for too many beers on the Saturday night until about 2am and had arranged to meet in the local Wetherspoons at 11am Sunday for a breakfast and onto Mecca Bingo (it was an ‘I’m old now’ thing and would be memorable many years after). Anyway, having unsurprisingly overslept, I was awoken at 10:30am by my brother banging on the door.

‘Get up you lazy bastard’ was the cry. And that very second, this lazy bastard did. He made me a coffee whilst I showered and at just past 11am we got to the pub, still feeling the effects of the night before. 

A full English and a few hair of the dog beers later, we made it to Mecca. We bought our cards for the session and decided to have another beer or two before we got down to play. 

Now... we didn’t really match the usual bingo clientele. A group of 25-50 year olds who were slightly merry isn’t what they were used to (I didn’t know Mecca sold sambuca...), in fact the slightest thing made us giggle like naughty schoolgirls. This wasn’t helped that the bingo caller decided to pronounce ‘six’ as ‘seeks’. I’ve no idea why. But anyway, the rather mature snorting laugh that echoed from our table when ‘seeksty nine’ was called out actually got a response from the bingo caller asking people to be quiet. 

To answer your question, yes one of our party won a large jackpot of £400! The reason for my backstory is that she did the honourable thing and asked folks if they wanted another beer with the winnings. I went to the bar with her to give her a hand carrying it, and the barman took one look at me, one look at the table where I’d come from and said in quite a stern but frightened manner ‘sorry mate, the bar’s closed’. Despite it apparently only having opened about an hour before. Hmm...

We still sometimes talk about that day. My brother has never forgiven me for dragging him to the bingo hall. I won’t repeat some of the insults he’s thrown at me because of it....

[Mentholdan]

That's what I like about forums, great little nuggets to be told. 

In the 80s I bought a racehorse, it was a yearling filly, I'll post the story later. 

[Cheekydme]

I've never been to a bingo Hall but about 8 years ago I played bingo on betfred had deposited 80 pound over 2 weeks of play anyway it was just before Christmas I won 1,280 pound the biggest win I ever had was so shocked,nice Christmas present lol,but this year been playing deal or no deal bingo the worst ever rob's u blind.

[Seaton-slots]

My mum loves her Bingo and had a really decent win on 1st March 1980... That night my dad died of a massive heart attack aged 46. Over the years the lure of Bingo ensured she would go about once a month with her friends for a night out and all was well until!... She won again in 1991... Not quite as much but enough to have me taken into hospital that night after suffering a mild heart attack aged 32.

Mum is in her 80's now and still like the odd game... we just pray she doesn't win  

[TheKingInTheNorth]

As a student I worked in the bingo!

Claim to fame is I checked a winning ticket off for “the national”, bloke won around £105,000 and never even stuck £50 behind the bar to buy the staff a drink the miserable c**t!

Its something I still do today, if I hit a big win in the bookies on the machinesI’ll leave the staff a small tip to get their dinner with or something, or whatever they like.

[DaveM]

On 4/14/2019 at 11:30 AM, BlindHaze said:

This wasn’t helped that the bingo caller decided to pronounce ‘six’ as ‘seeks’. I’ve no idea why.

Because he was was Sith Ifrican.

[TheKingInTheNorth]

6 hours ago, Seaton-slots said:

My mum loves her Bingo and had a really decent win on 1st March 1980... That night my dad died of a massive heart attack aged 46. Over the years the lure of Bingo ensured she would go about once a month with her friends for a night out and all was well until!... She won again in 1991... Not quite as much but enough to have me taken into hospital that night after suffering a mild heart attack aged 32.

Mum is in her 80's now and still like the odd game... we just pray she doesn't win  

That’s surreal, as it’s something you wouldn’t make up that’s just mental....

Sorry to hear you lost your dad at a young age.

[Andy]

I've been a few times in my early twenties.

Me and a mate noticed another friend and his Mrs was always disappearing on a Sunday and couldn't be found. After weeks of interrogation he caved and told us all about his secret bingo excursion.

We laughed and took the piss out of him all week and ended up tagging along the following Sunday and what a magical place it was. The cheapest drinks in town and I'm talking pints and doubles! I won £20 which pretty much covered the Tab and after that it turned into a regular thing.