A Few Comments On Bingo Etiquette

[00:00:04] It's not a game, it's a large game. Hello, and welcome to The Broke Bingo Addict. This is a podcast that ventures through the wild and crazy world of bingo. This is much more than your grandmother's bingo. My name's Shari, and welcome to this week's episode, which as always is for entertainment purposes only. Hi, everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of The Broke Bingo Addict.

[00:00:33] I hope you're all doing well and enjoying the summer. For this particular episode, there are a couple of things I wanted to talk about. What I'm going to start out with is talking about some of the things that go on in bingo halls, some of the bingo etiquette that I think it's kind of important to touch upon again. I know I've talked about it before in the past, and probably I'm repeating myself, and maybe even saying things that you already know. But these are a few things that I think are worth repeating.

[00:01:02] Now, the first thing I want to talk about are bingo pull tabs or flash or safari. They call it a lot of different things. I think for the most part, generally speaking, the most widely used term is pull tabs. But in any way, it is when you get your lovely little tickets, your little cards, not playing bingo, regular traditional bingo, but when you get your little cards, where you can get the number and you can win some incredibly large payouts for those things. Sometimes it's little payouts. Sometimes it's other pull tabs, but they're just incredibly popular

[00:01:31] and have absolutely changed the game of going to play bingo. I myself, not going to lie, an ungodly pull tab addict. And luckily, I'd say luckily. I don't know if it's luckily. But because of my budget, I'm not able to buy as many of those little suckers as I'd like to. So that kind of keeps me staying in my lane and not going overboard. But anyway, whatever your limit is, whether you're just buying two pull tabs

[00:01:56] or whether you're buying 3,000 pull tabs, the point is you have to buy them from somebody. Okay? And generally speaking, these are the lovely workers that are coming around selling them to you. Now, a lot of places, I imagine, probably have people who are paid to do that. But for what I'm understanding, what has been my experience is that most places either have just basic volunteers, people who are doing it for the heck of it, or a lot of places are doing it because they are required to buy their school.

[00:02:25] They have kids that are in school and they have to do it. So we all know this and I appreciate that. Which, by the way, I think is really funny. Just to throw this in for a second, one of the places that I play at, which is called St. John Bosco, I played there this weekend. And it's very funny because I've been playing there for a while. And you get used to the people who are selling the pull tabs and you know them and they have their system kind of down. But when they have the change of the year, the school year, then you have new people coming in. And so that's what happened this past weekend is we had new people coming in.

[00:02:54] And it's funny because they're scared to death because you have all these people yelling at them and telling them, come over here and come over there. But St. John Bosco actually has a pretty good system set up. But one of the things I want to talk about, though, is still it's always kind of a question for me. The big issue is even though these people are trained and they are out there to sell you their pull tabs, Safari or Flash, whatever you want to call it, it can get a bit crazy sometimes.

[00:03:22] So the basic rule from my understanding has always been that you're supposed to be seated when you buy pull tabs, okay? You're supposed to be sitting in your seat, not going up to them, not hovering over them or whatever, to buy pull tabs. And I understand that that's the rule, but I'm not going to lie. I've been in the situation myself where I've been that person that's gone up to them. And if you listen to my last episode, I was talking to Ruben about that. And he's like, yeah, you know, people can get crazy sometimes

[00:03:49] because they're afraid that they're not going to get their pull tabs. And in my particular situation, specifically speaking to St. John Bosco, I sit in the far corner, okay? I am in the very far corner of the room. So what happens is they have a system of going a certain direction all the time and they won't necessarily have anything left by the time they get over to me or they just simply forgot to go to that particular area. So I've always found that to be kind of a problem.

[00:04:17] And I'm not going to lie, there have actually been times when I've gone up to people, you know, not sitting in my seat and I've gone up to them and I've asked for some pull tabs. But when I do that, generally speaking, I like to make sure, you know, you get a quick look to the people around you to see if they're getting them. You also want to make sure that if they are buying pull tabs, when you're right there, you want to make sure that those people that are seated are getting whatever they're requesting first. You also want to make sure that if you're not the only person,

[00:04:45] that you want to make sure you're standing in the correct line. You know, sometimes people are all just kind of hovered. You want to make sure that you're not cutting anybody else off who's already standing up there trying to get pull tabs too. So that's one of the things I always think is a very interesting situation is what to do with the pull tabs because you do. Some of the pull tabs are very, very popular and the popular ones can go very quickly. So again, if you're in that situation where you have a big room and they're going to start on the far side of that room selling those pull tabs,

[00:05:14] there's a very good chance you're not going to get one of those. And again, when I'm speaking of these, I generally think of the ones that are popular like spare change or a banana split and things like that. And I definitely know I've said this before. What I do like about St. John Bosco is that when they're in that situation, what they'll do is that they'll only limit you to one pack. So those people come out, they have their little instructions about what areas they're supposed to go to sell to. And in the first time around,

[00:05:43] they're only allowed to sell one pack to all those people. Okay. Now, if for some reason they don't sell out, then they'll go back around and you have another chance to buy some more, which I think is a pretty good way of managing that. There are a lot of places that don't do that, but there are also a lot of places that do. And again, I think that that's a really good way of doing it. So just wondering what people think about that. If nothing else, one thing is definitely true. Okay. I don't know whether you should stand up or sit down all the time, whatever, but the one thing you shouldn't do

[00:06:13] is you shouldn't harass the poor little people who are selling the pull tabs. They are doing the best they can. This is not their life. Like I said, they're most likely doing it because they're trying to pay off or take care of whatever responsibility they have to the school or the church or whatever because their child is going there. So whatever it is, you never, never, never should be yelling at them or arguing with them or giving them a hard time because they are just doing the best that they can.

[00:06:41] So that's one thing I wanted to talk about. The other thing I want to talk about is tipping, tipping the people that are working there. I saw this comment. One of the people that I know put on there some kind of concern about people not being tipped, like the caller not being tipped. And I personally always tip the caller. There are certain people that I tip when I'm winning. I should say winning if I win. And that's the person who's picking up the money. I'll usually tip them. If it's a house, I'll tip the house.

[00:07:11] And if there's a caller, oh, if there's a caller, there's always a caller, but I always make sure that they say this amount is for the caller. Okay? And that's generally the case. Even if a place is somewhere that says that everybody gets the same amount of money, I generally will just sit there and say, this is for the caller and so on. So I don't know why people wouldn't do that, but I have seen it. I've seen people many times. I was in Vegas years ago and this person won an ungodly amount of money. It was really big. This was the time when they had progressive games going

[00:07:40] so you could win really huge jackpots. And this person who was a regular, I'd seen this person before, so it wasn't like this was somebody from out of town or something or somebody who didn't know. This person sat there and won a really big jackpot. Not only didn't tip the caller, didn't tip anybody. It's like, oh, okay. All right. So, I mean, I personally would have a hard time doing that. I would feel really guilty because I honestly feel that it's good for you to share the wealth. Now, I will say,

[00:08:09] sometimes I've tipped a lot. Sometimes I've tipped a little. Usually for the house or wherever I'm playing, I do try to tip at least 10%. Okay. So, that I will do. Other people around me, it actually depends. Sometimes you have a lot of people around you and so you're like, I can't tip everybody a certain amount because then I'm going to walk home with like $5. Or other times you're like, okay, I definitely want to make sure that I'm being generous. Other times I've actually had a situation, I can think of one in particular, where I got so flustered. It was so, I was so surprised and it was an amount

[00:08:38] that I was so outdone by that I was trying to figure out in my head, which by the way, I can't do. I cannot add in my head for the life of me. Never could. Never could add in my head. And I just couldn't figure out what to tip. And I actually went back after I had tipped. I went back, you know, later and tipped all these people more because I didn't think it was adequate. But it's always kind of an issue out there. People say tip, not tip, lucky bucks for some people or whatnot. So, that's another issue. Absolutely.

[00:09:07] I think that you should tip the collar just because I think it's good luck and just a nice thing to do and generally speaking. But hey, if you don't want to do it, you don't want to do it. So, my next thing I want to talk about are seats. Again, these are things that have popped up I've seen people talking about lately. So, that's why they're on my mind at this particular time and saving seats. And I know that, you know, people when you're playing bingo, especially when you're playing all the time and you're playing at the same spot all the time, then you do have a seat that you like

[00:09:36] and you do get comfortable and there are people sitting around you that you like and you do kind of get ticked off when you walk in there and you think that that's going to be your seat. You're really, you're like, okay, somebody's in my seat. But for me, it's kind of like, yeah, I get ticked off and yeah, I'd be really mad but if I didn't save it or somebody didn't save it for me, then, oh well, I just going to have to suck it up and let that person have my seat. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't go over to that person

[00:10:05] and ask them if they wouldn't mind moving, particularly if it's somebody who is obviously new because a lot of times people don't know and they have no problem since it's not something that's special to them. They don't have a problem on moving. I kind of feel like it's similar to airlines and, you know, somebody comes on and say, oh, I'm traveling with my family. Would you mind moving? Or, oh, I get air sick or whatever. Would you mind trading seats with me or whatever? And people are like, no, this is the seat that I wanted. This is the seat that I got. If you had wanted that seat, you know, that particular seat,

[00:10:34] then you should have made arrangements to get to that particular seat. But I don't think it's a problem to ask. I do think it's a problem to get upset if people don't want to change their seat because, again, you don't own it. And, and I think that that's just an absolutely insane attitude. And because of that, I want to tell you this other story of something that happened to me, you know, about people and having these attitudes. There's a place that I play at and I had gone there one night and they have different sessions. Okay. So,

[00:11:03] so this would be the bingo club if you didn't know. But, so I was going there one night and I hadn't played the first session, but I was going to play the second session. And when I got there, there is, like I said, there's a place, an area that I like to sit at. So when I got there, there were these two ladies playing there, but the lady sitting on my side, it looked like she had a lot of stuff put in the area where my seat would be. Okay. They have all their little seats blocked off. So you can tell they're all little individual seats

[00:11:32] and she had all of her items placed in these seats. And I was like, okay, I'm sorry. Is anybody sitting there? Because trust me, when I'm there and I have a bunch of stuff, I put it into another area too, the area next to me, either on the right or the left. So I have more space in my general area. But if anybody comes and anybody wants to sit there, trust me, I'm moving my stuff because I don't own that seat. So anyway, so I said to this lady who clearly was just blocking that seat, you know, do you mind?

[00:12:01] And she just kind of ignored me. She just gave me like a look and just didn't say anything. And I'm thinking, okay, because you clearly heard me, but all right, this is the attitude you're going to have. I'm not making a scene. Trust me, there are other places to sit, but I just thought that that was so incredibly rude. So I would see this lady all the time, right? Because now I've got the face. And so I would see her all the time. And I finally thought, you know, I said, you know what? Maybe she was just having a bad day. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt. Was it rude?

[00:12:31] Yeah, I thought it was very rude, but maybe she was just not feeling it that day. So I kept seeing her. And one day I said, let's just strike up a conversation. And I did. She collects a particular item and I had seen it someplace. So she was sitting there and she had one of these items that she collects. And I said, oh, you know what? I was traveling a little while ago and I actually thought of you because I saw this thing that you collect. And I was just like, oh my God, you know, she would like it. And so we got into this whole big conversation and she was really excited.

[00:13:01] And like I said, we just kept talking and being friendly for the rest of the day. I invited her to some other places that I play. I said, oh, there's this, you might like it. And we just kind of, you know, got along fine. And so in my head, I was absolutely, oh, so that's what it was. She was just having a bad day. She's not the, you know, hmm, that I think she is. She was just having a bad day. So all well and good. A couple of weeks go by. We're not necessarily sitting by each other, but we are seeing, we are saying hi and whatnot.

[00:13:29] I actually brought her in some information about those other places that I mentioned and so on. Well, lo and behold, a couple of weeks later, I'm in there. Same kind of situation. They placed three sessions. I hadn't played the first session, but I was going to play the middle session. And when I went to go sit down in my seat that I like to sit down at, one of my friends, one of my good bingo friends came up to me and she said, you know what? That lady, by the way, she's, she's like whispering because it's the same lady that I'm referring to, who's now sitting about two seats down from me.

[00:13:59] She said that she was in that seat. She had come early and she was going to play the early session. And she was sitting in this particular seat. Well, while she was sitting there, this lady, the one that I've mentioned before, came over and just started a big scene. She was like, get out of my seat. And she says, you know, this is supposed to be saved for me. And my friend was like, no, nothing was saved. I was sitting here and I'm fine. And you're going to have to find someplace else. Whatever it was, they got into a big ruckus.

[00:14:26] And I have to mention that my friend who was there first is also not somebody who just takes it lying down. She's not, she's not a pushover. She has a bit of an attitude herself. So she's not somebody who can easily be manipulated, but I guess they got into some kind of a big ruckus, which by the way, none of the security guards or anybody else said anything to her or tried to defuse the situation while it was happening. But anyway, so I guess in the end, she just kind of said, screw it. And she went and she sat someplace else.

[00:14:55] And I'm bringing this up only because again, you don't own the freaking seat. Yes, I understand it. Yes, it can be upsetting, but that's just the way life falls. And, and you shouldn't have been as obnoxious about this, about the seat as this person was, but it brings me back to sit there and go, Oh, so I was right in the first place. You are a nasty person. You are rude and obnoxious. So anyway, I just thought that was funny. And trust me, that lady and I no longer speak. I no longer say hi. And I do, you are a nasty person. You are rude.

[00:15:25] You are obnoxious. And I'm not going to waste my time on somebody who's going to treat people like that. It's one thing, like I said, to ask, it's one thing to be upset, but it's another one to be rude and obnoxious and act like you own something that you don't. So that's my final say on it. Anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent, but those are a couple of things that have been coming up lately. I've seen other people talking about it and they've been on my mind. So I wanted to bring it up to you and hopefully didn't offend too many people by my thoughts about these things, but that's how I feel.

[00:15:53] So that's it for this week's episode of The Broke Bingo Addict. Again, I hope it was informative. I thank you so much for listening and I hope you'll come back and listen to our next episode. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye. It's not a game. It's a weird thing.