Robert King remembers the bingo heyday in the early 1990s when individual Colorado nonprofits generated $100,000 annually holding no more than three sessions per week.
“You couldn’t beat it for fundraising,” said King, president of the Sons of Norway Trollheim Lodge, a Lakewood nonprofit focused on promoting and preserving Norway’s heritage.
Players wagered more than $220 million in the state annually on bingo, pickle pull-tabs and raffles back then. Last year, that figure was roughly $124 million.
Colorado’s bingo industry began its downward spiral after commercial casinos opened in the state in 1991.
The slide hasn’t slowed. In 2004, there were 44 bingo parlors. There are 28 now.
Under state law, only nonprofits are allowed to operate bingo, renting space from parlor owners. The number of nonprofits running games fell 35 percent from 2004 to 2007. Attendance dropped 33 percent during the same timeframe.
“Bingo continues to decline, there is no doubt about that,” said Corky Kyle, executive vice president of the Colorado Charitable Bingo Association, which represents several parlors in the state. “The reason for the decline is because (bingo) has not kept up with the changing times.”
Kyle said he wants to reinvent the pastime, pointing to two state provisions he believes are contributing to the drop in the number of bingo players, parlors and operators.
First, nonprofits have to be in business for five years before they qualify to hold a bingo session. Second, they must use volunteers and can’t pay workers to run the sessions.
“In today’s fast-paced lifestyle, finding volunteers to go ahead and run three sessions a week is really, really difficult,” Kyle said.
The industry plans to propose changes to the state’s bingo regulations next year, with hopes of getting them on the ballot through a referred measure from the legislature, he said.
“When you get volunteers that don’t want to be at a bingo session, they run their business poorly and it serves as a detriment to their game,” said John Amen, a former parlor owner who now sells bingo supplies. “Players stop coming.”
Game limits raised
The industry secured two legislative changes in the past year. The number of bingo sessions a group can hold annually was raised to 220, or about four per week, from 158. Also, games can now pay out as much as $2,000 in prize money, up from $1,500.
“Those are only Band-Aids that are not going to fix the real issue with bingo,” Kyle said.
Kyle is raising the prospect of a statewide progressive jackpot, where prize money at participating halls would be linked.
Some parlor owners say a key to staying in business during the industry downturn is to spend money to market the product and attract different crowds to the game.
Dan Gincig, a partner in two bingo parlors, said he spends $50,000 to $100,000 annually marketing the halls.
“We try to attract new people and some younger people,” Gincig said.
In a counterintuitive view, some owners say high gasoline prices may be helping their business as gamblers cut back on trips to casinos in the mountain towns of Black Hawk, Central City and Cripple Creek.
“People have to stay closer to home, and they’re looking for entertainment closer to their homes,” said David Esses, owner of Turn II Bingo in Denver.
Hollywood Bingo owner Jane LaPean said she has noticed an increase in attendance since January, attributing the rise to gas prices and the casino smoking ban that went into effect this year. (Smoking was banned in bingo halls beginning in 2007.)
“I think bingo’s on its way up,” she said. “We’ve hit our bottom.”
Slide continues
State data for the first quarter, though, show that industry-wide attendance and spending are continuing their downward trend.
Hollywood Bingo has four sessions per week, run by three nonprofits. The hall can handle up to 14 sessions per week.
“It’s hard to get volunteers even in your own organization,” said King, whose Sons of Norway chapter has 413 members in the Denver area. “I’ve been pretty lucky.”
Though the group doesn’t generate the $100,000 annual profit it once did, Sons of Norway is on target to earn about $50,000 this year from two weekly bingo sessions. The sessions are attracting about 80 players on average. In the early 1990s, it was typical for sessions to bring in 150 players.
“It’s way down,” King said. “If we were to only average 50 to 60 people a night, we couldn’t do it.”
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com
