For love of the game

At Grand Plaza, the game now called bingo provides a low-risk challenge for regulars and pocket change for charities.

By SHERYL KAY

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 20, 2000

CARROLLWOOD -- It takes Doris Jones exactly six minutes to drive from her home in Northdale to the Grand Plaza shopping center on N Dale Mabry Highway.

She's sure because for the past five years Jones has been a regular player at Grand Plaza Bingo, tucked in the rear of the strip mall. She plays seven days a week, every week, from 9:30 a.m. till 2:15 p.m.

"I've got one son at home and he works all day; my house is all picked up, so I've got nothing to do," said Jones, 68, a retired machinist. "I love bingo because I love the challenge -- I'm never bored."

Jones joins a line of bingo devotees dating back almost 500 years to Italy, where the game originated as a lottery called Lo Giuoco del Lotto d'Italia. The concept of matching numbers on a playing card with numbers that were called out loud quickly spread to France and Germany and then became popularized during the early part of the 20th century in America with an identical game called Beano.

Toy salesman Edwin S. Lowe is credited with renaming the game when he heard an excited player mistakenly call out "Bingo" instead of "Beano."

Bingo at the Grand Plaza goes back 12 years, when Glenn Peeples opened the facility. His air filtration company had sold units to smokey bingo halls all over the country, he said, and he developed an interest.

Peeples, a former standout golfer who had a hand in the startup of Carrollwood with developer Matt Jetton, ran the business for four years until lawmakers proposed strict new regulations in 1992, including one that only a charitable organization could own a bingo parlor. So Peeples sold out.

"I shook the new owner's hand one morning, and that afternoon they repealed the law," said Peeples. "It was too late to back out."

Already fascinated with the business, Peeples went on to own N-41, another bingo hall in north Tampa, for the next eight years. Last month he bought back Grand Plaza.

"We lease the place and then lease it back to charities," Peeples explained. "We oversee things, but they take in all the money, pay the electricity, pay all the overhead, pay the players, and then they keep the profit."

Four charities operate Grand Plaza Bingo: Lutheran Services Florida, Easter Seals Florida, the Life Center, and League of Mercy (which formerly owned the parlor).

"We get about $200 a month from the bingo," said Joy Margolis, director of communications for Lutheran Services. "That money goes into our Guardianship Program for the frail elderly, so what this means is it helps us fund additional indigent wards."

"Without these kinds of contributions we wouldn't be able to help the indigents, so the contributions really help the whole community," she said.

Under state law, commercial halls exist for the sole purpose of giving charities a place to play bingo. But most non-profit groups at commercial halls do little more than lend their names to the games in exchange for a sliver of the proceeds.

Neighboring Pasco and Pinellas counties have much stricter regulations for commercial bingo halls. Hours are restricted, and they must submit financial reports to county officials.

The games are supposed to be played for charity. However, of more than $16-million wagered in Pinellas County's commercial bingo halls in 1998, charities took home only about $600,000.

That is less than 4 percent of the total. Factor out the three most profitable halls, and the reported percentage to charity drops to less than 1 percent.

During the day, participants at Grand Plaza can play three cards for 25 cents, eight cards for 50 cents, or 12 cards for 75 cents, per game. Payout depends on the number of players, Peeples said, but it's always 75 percent of the total take.

Thursday through Sunday nights, players can play 21 games for $6, each game paying off $12, and eat a free dinner.

"I spend about $25 a day here, but I win often," said Jones. "That's why I can afford to come -- I'm lucky."

Jones, who said she started playing bingo at church 40 years ago, has played up to 16 cards for one game, but usually has 12 spread before her.

"Four, four and four," she said, pointing to the cards on the table. "It just comes natural. I never miss a number."

Peeples said Jones is a perfect example of the daytime bingo crowd.

"They're mostly women, mostly retired, and they just love the game, love coming here," he said. "It's something for them to do, and this is like a second home for them. They all know each other."

Dale Stewart, 57, one of the few male regulars, drives from his home near MacDill Air Force Base in south Tampa up to Grand Plaza five days a week.

"I've been playing since I was 18," said the retired warehouse manager. "It's the waiting that I like -- when you're waiting for them to call your number."

Stewart said he wagers about $15 a day and takes home about $50 a week, sometimes more.

"I've played at Seminole Bingo a couple of times, but the (video) machines take all my money as soon as I walk in the door," Stewart said. "They have so many people playing bingo there, you have about as much chance of winning a game as you have of winning the state lotto."

Peeples said the Seminole facility, run by the tribe on reservation land, can offer things that his parlor can't, because the Seminoles aren't subject to the state laws that govern non-Indian bingo.

"For example, we can't have more than three jackpots a day, which means a payout of over $50, and the maximum we can pay on any jackpot is $250," Peeples said. "The Seminoles are a sovereign nation, so they can do their games at any price with no limits on the payout."

So if the numbers are fairly low and the margins are very slim, why does Peeples, who owned a national air filtration company for 30 years, stick with owning bingo halls?

Just as the players feel, "It's something to do," he said.

"I'm 68 years old. I'm not in this for the money," he said. "It's kind of a challenge -- I'll make it go here. I'm definitely not going to lose money."

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