Thursday, January 09, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

A bingo controversy?

Critics contend Station's progressive bingo jackpot is unfair, but state regulators disagree

By Bob Shemeligian

It's Southern Nevada's biggest bingo jackpot, but is it a random and fair jackpot?

Yes, say executives at Station Casinos, which operates the Jumbo Bingo Progressive game that offers a six-figure jackpot that stands today at more than a quarter of a million dollars.

Yes, says the state Gaming Control Board, which has investigated the game at the five Station properties where it is played.

No, cries player Harold Barling, a 66-year-old grandfather who often plays bingo at Santa Fe Station, near his northwest Las Vegas home.

"I think it's nothing but a big money maker," Barling says.

The Jumbo Progressive, a linked progressive game that is played simultaneously several times a day at five Station properties, offers the six-figure jackpot to the first player who covers all the numbers on his bingo card. But there is a limit to the amount of numbers that are called, so it's very difficult to hit.

"The main contention is that when the game first starts, there is no chance to hit the jackpot," Barling says. "And they announced yesterday [Saturday] they will start the next jackpot at 11 numbers instead of nine. I think they're reacting to your inquiries."

The game is complicated. In the Jumbo Progressive game, players try to cover all 25 numbers on their bingo cards. The even numbers are covered before the game starts, as is the free space in the middle. This leaves the odd numbers to be covered. If the card contains an equal number of even and odd numbers, the player must cover 12 odd numbers to hit the jackpot. And so, if the casino calls only nine numbers, and the player has more than nine odd numbers on his card, it's impossible to win.

However, some Jumbo Progressive cards have as few as nine odd numbers. Indeed, bingo director Weldon Russell explains that the cards played in the big jackpot game have between nine and 14 odd numbers, and so somebody does have a chance to win.

But such cards "are not created entirely randomly," states mathematician Michael Shackelford on his website titled "The Wizard of Odds." In his report on Station's bingo progressive game, Shackelford basically says if the cards were random, some would contain fewer than nine odd numbers.

Russell, who runs the game, confides that after talking to Shackelford, he's "not sure what he's talking about."

But Russell states emphatically that his Jumbo Progressive game is random and fair. He acknowledges the Jumbo Progressive is difficult to hit--that's why players have a shot at a quarter million dollars for only a $1 investment. And Station Casinos seeds the jackpot with $100,000 every time it's hit, and so if it's hit more often, it costs the casino more money.

"What do they want me to do, make the game so it's hit every three sessions?" Russell asks. "I can't do that. If I do, I'm out of business. I'm out of a job."

Why would a major casino corporation rig a bingo game?

"I think they're trying to make up for the decrease in business that's occurred after 9/11," Barling says. "Everybody knows slots have tightened up everywhere, and it's the same with bingo."

Russell says that's ludicrous. And if Barling thinks bingo at Station properties is rigged, then why does he play at the Santa Fe several times a week?

"That's a damn good question," Barling says. "I'm going to play the regular session anyway, and I will invest a few more dollars to try to hit the Jumbo Progressive consolation prize."

The consolation prize of the linked jackpot, which is paid every session at any of the five Station properties, totals $1,199. Barling has hit it--or a portion of it--three times.

The Gaming Control Board has approved the Jumbo Progressive game as fair and random. In an Aug. 6 letter to Barling, agent Michael Guerra notes that random checks of the progressive game at various Station Casinos properties "showed nothing unusual regarding how or where a player had won. ..."

Marc McDermott, chief of the Gaming Control Board's Electronic Services Division, concurs.

"Bingo is not rigged," McDermott says. "It's a ball blower, for crying out loud."