Chatting with Jay of Big Bux Bingo

[00:00:08] 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.

[00:00:27] So hi, everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of The Broke Bingo Addict. I am so happy to say that I have a special guest this week, and this is Jay. Jay and his wife are the owner-manager of Big Bux Bingo in Houston, Texas. So everybody, welcome to Jay. Hi, Jay. How you doing, ma'am? How is everyone? We're good. So we're just out here in California. I know you're out in Houston, so how's the weather out there? It's kind of cloudy right now, but it's pretty hot.

[00:00:54] But it's pretty hot. Okay, well, good to hear it. So to jump into this, I just want to say right off the bat, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started in bingo? I'm originally from Mississippi, Meridian, Mississippi. And in 1996, I started working in bingo. It's a bingo hall in Meridian, Mississippi called Casino Bingo.

[00:01:16] And I worked there for three years, and I left there. I went to the military. How I came in Houston is through the military. And I always wanted an extra job. And I was a bingo hall down the street from where I lived at. Mm-hmm. And when I went there, I met the owner. Well, she wasn't the owner. She was the manager at that time. It was Dottie Dutchess Slaker, the previous owner. Oh, okay.

[00:01:42] And she hired me at, it was a bingo hall that they were working at. And then she said she decided to open her own bingo hall. Mm-hmm. So from there, in 2011, she opened her own bingo hall, and I followed her. And here we are now, Big Bucks Bingo. Same Big Bucks Bingo, just different owner and different manager. Okay, so it's been there for a while. But it sounds like you've been managing it and owning it for how long? We started this year in January. We took it over in January. Oh, that's wonderful.

[00:02:12] Right. So was that scary? Not so much. I've been, with being in the military and doing leadership all my life, since 2021. And I've been in the bingo business since 1996. I kind of know the ins and outs of bingo. So taking it over is just a natural thing for me.

[00:02:38] Well, first of all, by the way, I want to say thank you for your service. My father was also in the military. What branch did you serve in? I served in the Marine Corps for eight years and in the Army for eight years. Oh, very impressive. So again, thank you so much for your service. And I'm glad you're now doing something that's a little less dangerous. So now, was this always your plan? Or did you just, like I said, you wanted to do something? I know. But would you have done anything? Or did you specifically want to go into the bingo business?

[00:03:07] It wasn't my plan. It wasn't like, you know, I want to be joined open. No, it wasn't my plan. And my goal was right now was, or I was, I got a hotshot company. And my son does that. But I was working at the bingo hall for them and with them. And I was the mastermind of all marketing. I was a recruiter for the military. So I'm marketing and marketing and marketing.

[00:03:35] So when she wanted to retire, me and my wife took it over and it just went like another step for me. So it was kind of like an unseen thing, but it was a great thing that happened. So I know it hasn't been long, but have you faced a lot of challenges getting started? Or are there still any notable challenges? Um, I kind of, everything that the previous owner had, we got. So it just kind of pick up and run with it. Mm-hmm.

[00:04:01] Um, any different things, just people not knowing who's the owner. But they'll go, the crazy thing about it, they'll run to my wife. My wife is a different race. Mm-hmm.

[00:04:43] When somebody see you or say something or they think that is wrong, they'll be quick to run around me to go try to tell them me about something. And I try to, and I'm all very fair person. Mm-hmm. I'm all about rules and regulation. So business is business and friends are friends. And I look at life. So if I'm at business, we're going to run it like a business and this is how the rules go.

[00:05:10] And some people don't like that. They want, oh, really? You're my friend. Like, do it this way. No. So. I was going to ask, have you faced unique challenges being Black-operated? Which sounds like you obviously have because there's the assumption that because you're Black that you're not the owner or the manager of this place. So is that one of the challenges you've found? That one is the biggest one. Everything else, everybody else has happened with me. The vendors, you know, they knew me for a long time anyway. Mm-hmm.

[00:05:39] All the vendors, everybody dealing with the bingo, with the big bucks, helping it out, getting pull tabs and paper. They all knew me anyway. I was the one they called because I don't mind talking to people. Right. As a recruiter, I had to talk to everybody. So I didn't mind talking to people, the charities. Everybody knew who I was in the mix.

[00:06:02] So when she retired, the previous owner retired, they already knew that, yo, Jay's going to take care of it. Jay's good. But other than the customers, you know, and I love all, like I said, I love my, we've been over backwards for our customers here. There's been things that I've done outside of bingo to help customers out because I'm just like that, you know, big heart. Mm-hmm.

[00:06:26] But I'm very, very strict on rules and regulations about doing stuff the right way. So nobody feels offended. Oh, good. Well, I was going to ask, are you associated with the school or do you deal with other charities? Well, in Texas, you have to have charities to operate bingo. Oh. So right now we have three charities with the bingo hall. Mm-hmm. There's a VFW Alliance Club and a VFW Auxiliary. Mm-hmm.

[00:06:53] And then we're trying, we're working on one more now. It's called Parents of Murdered Children. Oh. So they're going through the process now of getting their license. But like I say, here in Texas, I know, I don't know about in California, but Mississippi, it wasn't like that. But here in Texas, you've got to have charities to work through to have the license to play through the charities and make it like a trust fund. Right.

[00:07:19] So the charities is over everything. We work and we write the checks to pay out bills to whomever, the vendors, the building, the workers. And then we send a portion to it to the charities every quarter. Do they send you some money to help keep you going or just that you have to send them a part of your profits for them? Mm-hmm.

[00:08:09] They have multiple charities. So like six, seven. So what's the benefit of having several charities? More days you can play. Oh. Each day, each charity can play three sessions a week. Mm-hmm. So bingo sessions are four hours long. So each charity can have three sessions a week. Now you can ask for a temporary, so you can have an extra session or whatever.

[00:08:34] So basically run two sessions a day. You know, you do the math. You need at least five charities-ish to play every day for a week. Okay. So that's really interesting. So do you? Do you guys play every day? No, we play five days a week. Oh, okay. We try to give the customers a break of us. And that's a break of a customer.

[00:08:57] Since you've taken over, has everything stayed pretty much the same? Like the buy-ins the same, the payouts are the same? Or have you made some changes that you wanted to do? Well, we have made changes. Buy-ins are—it kind of fluctuates. It depends on the pot prizes that night. Mm-hmm. The pot has gone up. We've made different games. Here in Texas, the progressive pull tabs are like a new thing. In Mississippi, they used to have a game called Bonanza.

[00:09:26] I know it's a pull tab now, but it was a piece of paper wrapped up and had—it was a regular one-on card. Right. You didn't see it. But what happened is, and before bingo, the caller get up, we had two caller boards. So we'll get up and we'll pull 46 numbers. Mm-hmm. And that's on that caller board. And then we'll switch the board to our regular bingo board. And we walk around and sold that piece of paper for a dollar.

[00:09:51] Now, we didn't have pull tabs back then. They had the instant winners. You open it, and it's kind of like a scratch-off, but— Right. No pull tabs. It was strictly paper. We weren't even machines then. Everything was 12-on and 6-ons. But we pulled 46 numbers. If you bingo in 56 numbers or less, you won the prize. Prize kept going up. It was like a progressive jackpot.

[00:10:16] And then, I take that same concept. Now, like I say, take a step back. I don't like bingo. That's me personally. I think it's too slow for me. Oh, my gosh. It's kind of crazy how I don't like bingo, but I own a bingo hall. That is funny. And people say that. And I say, you can't—I know not to gamble, so I know what to do with it.

[00:10:41] But here, back to that point of the Bonanza, it eventually grows up to a progressive. Mm-hmm. And I have seen it in Mississippi hit like $8,000, $9,000, $10,000. Wow. So, I take the same concept here, but we have an odd even coverall. Mm-hmm. A one-on sheet. They pay for it, and it goes up. People like it. It haven't got to $10,000. I think the highest pot was $2,800. Somebody wanted it a week ago. Wow.

[00:11:10] And somebody backdoored and hit it for 1,000 three, four days later. Mm-hmm. But the thing is, I try to keep it cost-efficient because I know times are hard where people come in and have fun and still win a decent pot props throughout the time that they come and visit. Or bingo hall, big plus bingo. Well, I know. Also, you guys have to deal with taxes in Texas. You guys take the taxes out when they win.

[00:11:34] Do you think that makes it easier for you, or do you think it makes it more difficult than the places like in California or other places where they don't do that at all? Well, here in Texas, bingo players knows that, so it doesn't matter. And when you don't have bingo players, because like I say, I don't like bingo. So when I first came to Texas and played bingo once, and then I won, I think I won $500, and they paid me $475. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, okay, they took the tip.

[00:12:04] In my mind, they took it. I'm like, all right, they took their own tip. I didn't know that taxes were taken out until later on, like, hey, Texas law, just we had to take taxes out. We paid a customer out the other day. Brand new player came into bingo hall. He didn't buy no electronics. He just bought the paper. He bought one paper each for each game, and we were playing like $1,200 each game. Mm-hmm. And he won, and we went to pay him out. We paid him out $1,145 or whatever the taxes was. Mm-hmm.

[00:12:33] And he turned around and asked, he said, why only this? Like, why only $1,145 instead of the $1,200? And we told him they take taxes out in the state of Texas. He's like, oh, okay. Like, sometimes that hurt the workers because when people tilt, they look at it like I did, or they took the tilt, you know, or it came out on the top. But when you say it's taxes, you know, they've – the new customers don't know.

[00:13:02] The bingo player that plays everywhere, that travels to California, to up north, near Illinois, and stay in Texas, they know that most part of the customers, it don't hurt us because they know they still tilt. They tilt like they wanted $1,200. So some of our customers tip 10%, so $1,200, they still $120 instead of after taxes. Exactly. Exactly, which I do.

[00:13:28] But I was going to say, do you plan to do any of the type of TikTok events or any events in particular? Because I've played there once, I think, when Tanya, the bingo addict, had an event. And I know one of the days was at Big Bucks. So have you, or do you plan to do any kind of those events at your location? Well, we have two – we have done two a ton of years, Big Bluesers. Not this last – not this year, but last year. Mm-hmm.

[00:13:57] So, you know, we're open to it. I'm – I don't say no to nobody. I'm just not a big social media person. Mm-hmm. So that's why I was talking to Miss Bobby, the pool tab caddy lady. Who we love. Right. And I knew that she had more influence in the bingo scene than I did. Mm-hmm. Because on the site. So I'm trying to venture out, get people to come in. They try it out. We're not the biggest hall, but we're not the smallest hall.

[00:14:25] But people come to our bingo hall and they enjoy it. They say we treat them like family. Mm-hmm. I try – I try to treat everybody like you just came in and we're brothers and sisters. Well, I was going to ask that too. How difficult is it to keep the bingo hall profitable? It depends on the times of the week and people come in and think in our – probably 15-mile radius of us, there's probably three more bingo halls. Right. So it just depends.

[00:14:54] You know, you got your everyday customers that love you to death and they will come there no matter what the pie is. Then you got the other customers in which you want that is a value customer. Oh, they're having $10 computers over here and their gains are theirs. I'm going to go here. So you just got to balance it out and which I, you know, in life because I went to school, I went to college for accounting.

[00:15:21] And my mom always said, you know, you got to prepare for rainy days. Exactly. So when time comes and we're doing good, like we pay all our bills and I try to tell her, you know, put stuff to the side. So in Texas, around when school starts up, that's when the slow months hit for a while, like December. So we have to put money up to make sure that everything stays afloat.

[00:15:48] So I haven't – I've been in a bingo hall when it was, you know, you're piling to stay afloat. But I haven't dealt with it at the hit honcho right now. So I'm trying not to get to that part where I don't know what I'm going to do or we're going to have to close it or whatever. Let's hope not. Yeah, right now, you know, you're making money. It's money being made. Put it to your side because you're going to have bad months.

[00:16:17] Everybody has bad months. Yeah. Regardless of what you do. Well, I was going to say in my last episode, that was one of the questions that I had was like, what makes a player loyal? But it seems to me it sounds like one of your things that you feel helps to make them loyal, and I would like to think it's true, as you treat everybody with respect. Yes, ma'am. I tell my customers, and they all laugh at me. They all know that I'm a very jokeable guy, but I'm serious when it's business. And I say, I'm here to take your money.

[00:16:47] And they look at me. I'm like, hey, that's what they hired me for. You know, they hired you to take your money. And they think, hey, I said, I'm going to start writing a book. How to take women's money and not be mad about it. You know, they joke. They mad. But the thing is with it, I try to, if you come in with $5 or you come in with $500, I'm going to treat that $5 person just like I treat that $500 person. If you, I walk by you, because I sell pool towels.

[00:17:13] So I walk by you, and you got money, and you got a new all-player. Just like I do that $500 person that I know is going to buy everything in my bucket. And I keep walking by. They might say, no, I'm good. But I keep walking by, making them, letting them know that, hey, I see you. Here, we got this new tab. Even new players, when they come in and they be like, I don't know what it is, but y'all playing this game, the cleanest game, what are they? And I always break it down to them.

[00:17:43] I say, usually if you're a bingo player, so say if you came and visited, I know you're a bingo player. So I really ain't got to explain an all-player, a dog game, or a horse to you. But when I got to explain it to you, they're like, all right, I want to try one of the horses. I say, if you don't mind, if I was you, don't buy no horses yet. Let's start low and go high. And then I explain with all players. I say, you'll buy this. You'll play it. You don't feel like you wasted money.

[00:18:12] Once I see you come a lot or you understand it, then we can gradually go up to a dog game and then go to a horse. And they're like, oh, thank you. So I still have customers come in and say, Jay, what do I need? You know, they have to ask me what do they need. And they'll pull out $20 and I'll give them five all-players and three dog games. And then I'll walk off. They're like, well, I gave you $20. I say, but when we come back around and sell some more, you're still playing. You'll play the next one. And they're like, oh, okay, thank you.

[00:18:42] Exactly. That's very sweet. But I was going to say, so you've had a lot of experience, it sounds like. But what's the wildest thing you've ever seen happen in a bingo hall? Somebody in there spending money, hundreds of dollars, and their car gets old. Got a boot on it, huh? No, they take the car. Oh, wow. So not even giving you a chance. You're that far behind. Isn't that something?

[00:19:08] So sometimes I see weird things like, you know, you're spending $300, $400 and you've got more, but you didn't pay your car no. Exactly. But in the bingo hall, we try to keep it peaceful in hours. You know, I heard stories about other bingo halls, the call to get down and want to fight their customers. You got to brush it off your shoulder. We know customers get married. They're spending their money. Yeah.

[00:19:33] So you got to learn to have a thick skin, which I got thick skinned because going to a boot camp, I don't think nobody's skin thicker than a person that had been to a military boot camp or something like this. You were a Marine. Doesn't get thicker than that. Right. So, and I try to persuade that to my employees, the workers that work for us, that, you know, people going to talk, people going to be mad, people going to be happy.

[00:20:03] You just got to deal with the punches and go with it. Our job is to sell them stuff, make them happy, and pay them out regardless if they tip or not. Yep. So you got the people that may tip something, you got people who may not. Our job ain't here for that. We, hey, sooner or later they'll get it. If not, there's their money. So you can't argue with them about their money that they won or lost. Good. Now what do you wish for the future of bingo? You're in it for the long haul, right?

[00:20:34] My future, my goal for this one is, you know, a lot of bingo halls right here, they go and buy. Rent other buildings. So my goal is to find some land in a city that probably need to be bottled in, bottled in outright, a lot of buildings so we can do more things for the community.

[00:20:56] We might have a bingo here, but we can open it up for underprivileged kids and people that, you know, we have a kind of like a, what's called it, a gent home where they can come in and use it. Or, you know, just do different things for the community. But it's kind of hard to do that when you're paying all this out and then you're paying rent to a management company that just owns the building itself.

[00:21:23] So that's my next goal is, and I don't know how long or how long will it drive because I got to talk to the charities and get them in on it because I know one of our charities that are new charities, they're renting a building out too. So if it helps them, it helps everybody and everybody wins. So to expand, but not too much where it pulls you thin, where you're barely doing something right.

[00:21:51] I'd rather just, if anything, if I stay small and stay in one place and we're doing it right and everybody loves us, I'm happy with that. But once you start expanding too much, you kind of be a poor thing. So, but my next step is, or our next step is to try to find a place where we could take that or rent that we pay our money and kind of direct it to something else to help people.

[00:22:16] Okay. Well, it sounds like you understand how important black representation is and you want to do more for your community. Yes, because a big percentage of our players and, you know, if you go on Facebook or Instagram and they show videos and you look at it, 70 to 80% of the players are non-Caucasian. Right. They're Hispanic or they're black, you know.

[00:22:43] So I was trying to, my goalie, when I talked to Miss Bobby once, I was like, you know, Juneteenth is coming up. And if people can, you know, support black owned or black managed businesses for that day, just to show, you know, because, you know, big bingo halls, they expect that people are going to come. They expect to make money, but they kind of don't respect the people that comes there to give them the money. Right.

[00:23:11] So, and like I say, a big portion of it is black people, Hispanics or whatever like that. So I asked Miss Bobby, I said, you know, we should do something for Juneteenth and see if we can get it out. It ain't just got to be our bingo hall, but, you know, in general, the community, the local grocery store, the body shop, whatever.

[00:23:37] Because I know everybody in the world in Texas can't come to Big Bus Beagle. They don't have enough seats. Right. But if you can support, you know, different people or that, especially at that day. Right. That day would be huge. You know, you have other halls or other businesses. You may have to rethink, hey, a lot of our people is black. Right.

[00:24:03] You know, we got to respect them just as much as we try to take money from them. Respect them too. So, no, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. So, anyway, with Juneteenth coming up, I'd like to end this with you giving out the information of Big Bucks Bingo so people know exactly where to go. So would you mind giving us that information? Yes, ma'am. We're located in Houston, Texas at 7520 Cherry Park Lane.

[00:24:32] You can reach us on Facebook at Big Bucks Bingo 2.0. And then our phone number is 281-858-4249. And we're open Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I always call Tuesdays and Thursdays just to start with a T. Since we're not open, I kind of make slogans up. I said those are take money days, so I ain't trying to take take money.

[00:25:02] Good. So we can save it up a little. Right. So every day they start with a T, we're closed. But we're open Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And Sunday we play early bingo so people can go home and get ready for the work week. Sounds good. Well, thank you. I really appreciate it. I think this has been very informative, and I hope that we can get this information out to a lot of people so we can get a lot of people active for Juneteenth and get some more participation out there because it's deserved.

[00:25:30] And anyway, I'm sure you're doing a great job, and I can't wait to make it back out to Texas to go there. Thank you, Mel. And we'll be happy to see you. Okay. So that's it for this week's episode of The Broke Bingo Addict. I hope you enjoyed. And more importantly, I hope you'll go out and support Black businesses on Juneteenth. All right. Thanks so much for listening, and take care. It's not a game. It's a real game.