The pots might get sweeter soon at the local bingo game.
But according to the firefighters who rely on such games of chance to pay bills -- as well as a Carnegie Mellon University research team -- legislation proposed to more than double the allowable payouts at bingo games can't trump the power of real casinos.
"The games are already dead," said Norris Pace Jr., a member of the Edinboro Volunteer Fire Department, which shut down its bingo operation after the nearby Presque Isle Downs & Casino opened in Erie last year.
Legalized, for-profit gambling is undercutting profits at bingo games, a recent graduate study at Carnegie Mellon's Heinz School of Public Policy found. Bingo doesn't offer the fancy, glamorous appeal of casinos, which now are closer to home, said CMU professor Robert P. Strauss, who oversaw the study.
To help fire halls compete, state Rep. Don Walko, D-North Side, introduced a bill that would increase maximum daily bingo payouts from $4,000 to $10,000 and up the number of bingo games per week allowed from two to four. After passing 180-18, the legislation awaits Senate approval.
It's a nice gesture, said Alan DeSanzo, but the chief at Homewood Volunteer Fire Department in Beaver County said it's too little, too late. Casino gambling already has chipped away at his department's game, and the changes won't bring back enough players to justify increasing the jackpots or number of game nights.
"You can't even get enough people to play more than one night a week," DeSanzo said.
He remembers when bingo night brought in gamblers from as far as Cleveland and West Virginia two nights a week. Today, they go to Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort instead, 29 miles from Homewood in Chester, W.Va., or to The Meadows Racetrack & Casino, 55 miles away in Washington County.
The games once covered 100 percent of the fire company's $150,000 yearly operation by attracting 250 to 500 people a night, DeSanzo said. Now, the bingo game is lucky to have 100 players, and it pays for a third of the fire department's operation.
The borough this year stopped its police patrol to give the fire department $600 a month to pay off a fire engine loan.
Mary Savage runs the bingo games twice a week at the Houston American Legion Post 902, near The Meadows in North Strabane. She predicts 10 or maybe 20 more players would join the 111 she had Wednesday night if the payout could be increased to $10,000.
But it would take 200 to 250 players a night to cover such a payout, she said.
"You're not going to get 250 people at bingo at night," said Savage, who also manages two bingo nights at the Jessop Employees Club in Washington. "Remember, there is more than one bingo a night. So they have choices."
To support bigger pots, she said she'd have to increase the price per bingo card. A book of six cards costs $15 at Savage's games. The second book is $10. She said two books might cost up to $40 with the larger payouts.
"They can sit in front of the slot machines and put quarters in," DeSanzo said. "For 50 bucks, they could sit there for half a day."
Tana Lea figures players like her want to visit both the bingo halls and the slots parlors. "If you're a gambler, you're a gambler," said Lea, 50, of Washington. "You take the chance."
Yet she tries to make choices. She spent $60 recently at the American Legion, which she said she could spend in an hour at the Meadows.
"With the price of gas these days, you can't really afford it all," Lea said.
Volunteer fire departments would struggle to find members to work the games four nights a week, said Jim Bowden, who runs the games at South Franklin Volunteer Fire Department in Washington County.
"They're already putting in so much time at the station," Bowden said. "You don't want to come down and spend your evening at bingo and put in more time."
If smaller bingo games at churches and fire halls limited by space don't offer the bigger prizes, they will lose more players, Bowden said. With its large banquet hall, South Franklin's games could improve with other bingos closing, but Bowden doesn't want the other games to close.
"You want to take people from other places, but you don't want to destroy them," Bowden said.
And more casinos are coming.
Players surveyed by Carnegie Mellon said they will go to the Majestic Star once it opens on the North Shore, and won't go back to bingo.
Increasing prizes won't help, said David Ledet, 25, who with two other graduate students researched casinos and their effects on bingo.
"You're not going to save bingo," he said.
