Superstitious Anyone?

[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. Hi, everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of The Broke Bingo Addict.

[00:00:31] You know, in the last episode I did, I wanted to pay respect or just tribute to the bingo community in general. You know, so many people that I've met, so many people that are now important to my life and have contributed so much to me. And also, I wanted to comment on the pain it feels to lose some of those people. But in the midst of that episode, one of the things I talked about that's interesting to me in the bingo community are some of the, you know, some of the rituals, some of the

[00:00:59] superstitions or habits that you either witnessed from other people or that you developed yourself. So after that, I kept thinking about that more and more and more about how much stuff there is actually out there. So that's what this episode is going to be about. We're going to talk about some of the rituals or superstitions that people have and, you know, just some of the interesting facts about what goes on actually when you're playing bingo. So to start out with, I'm going to talk about the lucky seat.

[00:01:26] It's amazing to me how many people have a lucky seat. Now, this I think is different than people who just like to sit in a seat, which we've also talked about. There are people who just like to sit in a certain area. Like if people know me at the bingo club, they know I don't move around. There's like a choice five seats that I like to sit in. There's really actually one seat that I like to sit in, but sometimes it's not there. So I will stick to like seats really close to it, but I don't go to a different row. I don't go to a different area.

[00:01:54] That's where I like to sit, but it has absolutely nothing to do whether or not I think that's a lucky seat. It hasn't made, I don't think, one difference or another. For me, it's just that seat is particularly comfortable for me because I can see all the things that I want to see. I can see the flashboard really well. I can see whether there's lines at the food counter or anything. It's just a really comfortable seat for me. And so it tends to be my habit. But there are people out there who do believe that they have a lucky seat.

[00:02:24] In fact, statistics say one out of every five players feels that sitting in the same seat actually brings them luck. So I don't know. That hasn't happened for me. Clearly, that's something that people do feel actually brings them some luck. And I'm like, whatever you can do to win, do it. So I'm not going to stop you from doing that. The other thing that people like to do is some people prefer to play for what they consider is their lucky night. And I actually hadn't heard this before. This kind of popped up in my research.

[00:02:51] And people were saying that some people like to play on a particular night. They feel like they're luckier on a Friday as opposed to a Wednesday. Now, again, I actually don't fall into that category because when it comes to me when I play, it's more kind of a convenience thing. You know, what are they playing that particular night? Is it going to be a strip night? Is it going to be a big buy-in? Is it going to be a low buy-in? I like to play where I can go and I can spend a certain amount of money and know that I'm

[00:03:18] going to get the biggest bang for my buck, which is one of the reasons I tend to like to go over to St. Joseph's. I can do everything I want to do. And before buying all the tabs, I can spend probably about $100 and still have a chance of winning a particularly good payout, you know? So I like to play there sometimes. But otherwise, sometimes I like to play over at LAX Bingo because it's four miles from my house and I got to tell you, that's a nice benefit. So it has nothing to do with whether I win more on certain nights.

[00:03:47] And I think it would be interesting to do some kind of research for the people who do feel like they win more on certain nights. But again, something that is absolutely out there. Now, this one, I can guarantee you everybody knows. I mean, this is kind of, would it be synonymous or considered one of the key components of bingo? When people think of bingo players, when you do movies or TV shows and they show the little old ladies playing bingo, I can guarantee you that you're always going to see like trolls

[00:04:17] or you're going to see charms or you're going to see a lot of daubers. I mean, that's what people think about when they see little old ladies or whether it's young ladies, whatever, that's what they think about or that's how they portray bingo players. And the thing is, they are not wrong. Again, I think I mentioned this in the last episode about the fact that when I go, I see a lot of people who can have like a whole table full of multicolored daubers, big daubers, little

[00:04:44] daubers, you know, dark daubers, light daubers, daubers with, you know, extra little covers that they've paid for. Again, and I have some of those daubers myself, but that's not a thing of where I bring it. That's just something that I like. But there are people who absolutely will not go to bingo without having all those things. So things that are popular are the trolls. Everybody's seen the trolls. People like crystals. I haven't done crystals, but I know that, you know, I have absolutely seen crystals out there. Different types of charms.

[00:05:12] People like key chains, you know, and all those people think that those things or feel like they're helping them in their bingo. What I've also seen a lot lately, and I don't think is considered necessarily connected to bingo, or I say it's more popular, is people have sprays, right? People have a lucky spray that will bring the good vibes or whatever, where you spray it either on yourself or you spray it on your pool tabs or your papers, whatever. They now have these sprays now that are out there.

[00:05:39] I think Tanya the Bingo Addict actually sells those, and I've never used that myself. And again, I've never used any of those things. I'm not a person who does that. But I will bring the stuff with me that I just like. But I have a little turtle that people always comment on that I really like that somebody made for me, or excuse me, that somebody gave me. One of my bingo friends, Cindy, gave to me. And I like to take that because it was nice of her. I have a little frog that Tanya the Bingo Addict gave me. I've got a few charms.

[00:06:07] When you go to these events or when you see people for, you know, the summer shakeup or just different type of bingo events, it's kind of customary that people bring gifts. You know, we all make little gift bags for each other. And in many of those gift bags, I've gotten some of the cutest little things. I've gotten nice bracelets. I've gotten necklaces. I've absolutely gotten key chains. I've got a lot of things that have been really, really cute. I've gotten $2 bills, you know, things that have been really nice of people to give to me. And I keep those things.

[00:06:36] And every now and then I take them with me. But for me, it has nothing to do with thinking that they bring me any type of luck, mainly because that hasn't happened. But I just like the fact that people have been kind enough to think about me to give me something little like that or something big like that. But you'll see that on a lot of people. That is definitely a thing that happens out there and is very, very common and is synonymous with playing bingo. So that's the other thing, all the little gifts that you see people bring for themselves.

[00:07:04] But what also happens, I know I talked about the daubers, but here's another superstition. It's not just having all the daubers. For a lot of people, they do a whole system where they play certain colors. Like for this game, I'm going to play this color or we're going to mix it up or whatever. So that means a lot to people. I don't know if it's just sometimes just because it makes the game easier for them or if they really actually do think it brings them luck. Like I know a lot of people use yellow to mark their paper so they can do the design.

[00:07:34] I think the most common one is when you do the small crazy kites, people will do like an X in the middle of the square. So it's easier to see what you need and what you don't need. I personally have never had an issue with that, so I don't do it. But I do know a lot of people will take the time when they first get to bingo and they will sit there and they will go through all their packs or the papers and they will use a yellow dauber to make it easier for them to distinguish what the pattern is supposed to be, which I totally understand. If you have issues with that, you don't want to waste your time not getting the bingo or

[00:08:03] worrying about not getting the correct pattern and losing your bingo because you didn't have it correctly marked. So anyway, I've never really had to do that. The only one I do that for is at the bingo club. They have something called the Giant X. And for whatever reason, I can remember so many patterns on so many games. And this relatively simple pattern, the Giant X, I can't remember. That is the only paper that I actually do the line so I can see which way the pattern is supposed to be.

[00:08:32] But again, a lot of people do do that. But the other point I was trying to make about the daubers is that sometimes people do it for luck. People think that using a certain color actually brings you luck. And I remember when I was playing one time with somebody and I was saying that I wasn't having a lot of luck and they were like, change your dauber to a purple dauber. So I did that. I don't recall if I won or not, but I know that for whatever reason, that has always stuck in my head now. Okay?

[00:08:59] I have a tendency, if I can, particularly if I'm having a losing streak, I will try to always use a purple dauber. Sometimes I've just run out of ink or something and I don't have it available. But I do know that subconsciously now that is absolutely in my head, which also, like I mentioned before, Tanya gave me that information about keeping the dauber cap, keeping that up. That is my little superstition now that I absolutely do all the time. I could not sit there and not have the bingle dauber cap be facing upward. So I have my own little superstitions.

[00:09:29] Again, don't know if anything is helping. I'm just saying these are some of the things that people do. Now, another thing that I've been witnessing actually a lot lately, I don't know why this has become so prevalent in my surroundings lately, but the order of which you purchase things, okay? I have seen a lot of people doing this, whether it's the paper or whether it's with pool tabs. I see people buying them in a particular order. And again, this isn't me. I get the paper when the paper comes. I get the pool tab when the pool tab comes. And that's just what it is.

[00:09:58] Although I do have one small one. I'll tell you about my one small one a little later that just kind of popped up. But even that was short-lived. But anyway, I sit by a lot of different people, you know, all the time. And I've noticed that some people, when they're buying their packs, when they're buying the paper packs that they're going to be playing for the bingo that night, some people will not buy the packs right when they come out. Some people want to wait because they feel like the luckier packs are deeper in the stack for some reason. I've seen people who wait till like the last minute before bingo is going to start.

[00:10:26] And then they go up and they buy their packs because they think they are luckier for them. And hopefully that's the case. I don't know. That really hasn't yet again been the case for me. And I also know that some places you go, you can't do that. Like when I play at St. Joseph's or other places where they pre-do your packs, it doesn't make any difference. You don't know where your pack came from because it's already in a bag or it's already on your table, whatever, waiting for you. So you don't really have the options. But places like the Bingo Club, you do have that option. And I've seen it. People will absolutely wait till the last minute or whatever.

[00:10:56] Or not even that. People will buy from a particular person. I've seen that so many times. Like, I don't want to buy it from her. I'm going to wait from so-and-so to come by and I'm going to buy it from her. Which I think is interesting too, that a particular person you think is luckier for you than somebody else. Could also just be a personality thing. But long and the short of it, I absolutely have seen people say, yeah, I'm not going to buy from that person. I want to buy from so-and-so. And I'm hoping it's because of luck and not because of the personality issue. So beyond the pack situation, what is most prevalent, I'm sure everybody's seen this,

[00:11:26] is when you're buying the pool tabs, people have a certain thing. You know, I want a stack from the back or I want two from the front. I sat the other day when I was playing Bingo, I sat next to these two ladies and their system was this. Every time they bought pool tabs, they wanted... Three from the top and three from the middle. So they weren't buying a lot, but they wanted three from the top or three from the middle. Every time they did it, that's what the system was. No matter how many pool tabs came out, it was three from the top and three from the middle. And so they've done that. And I've seen other people who like to buy, you know, like two stacks, but they'll get

[00:11:54] a stack from the back, same type of thing, stack from the middle or whatever it is. It's just interesting how people think that the order that they buy their pool tabs in makes it, you know, more probable that they're going to get a number or have the opportunity to win. So that I can guarantee you, you see everywhere. I'm not one to do that because I think the other way, I think, well, maybe if I do that, if I buy it out of order, then I might be missing it. You know, I'm going to do three from the top and three from the bottom. And my number would have been fourth from the top.

[00:12:22] So people will do that too with a pool tab sellers or flash sellers. They're well aware that people like to do that. So sometimes they will walk around and they'll ask you, it's like, you know, do you care? Do you want just from the top to the bottom, whatever you want, they will ask you. But it's really irritating. What is really irritating is I had at one time where somebody made that choice for me. And I just can't even tell you how irritated I was where they didn't just go straight from the top.

[00:12:50] They sat there and went all through like the stack, getting at different locations because they thought that I would like that. And I appreciate that somebody would think that you would like it. But again, everybody has their system. And that just makes me feel like I'm missing something. So it's like, no, please do not arbitrarily decide what it is that I'm going to want when I'm buying my tabs without asking me. So I like to go, you know, straight down. Or the other thing too is when people give you something wrong, here's my own other superstition.

[00:13:20] If somebody gives me the wrong amount of something, somebody gives me the wrong pack, somebody gives me the wrong number of pool tabs, or they give me the wrong pool tab. They have three or four different pool tabs. And I said, I wanted spare change. And they give me Popeye. Well, now I got to buy the Popeye because I can't give them back because it could have been the winning number in the Popeye and I gave it back. So I can't give you that. So that absolutely makes me crazy too. Or the other day, somebody did that.

[00:13:48] I was at Bosco Tech, I think one time. And I inadvertently, it wasn't their fault. It was my fault. I didn't know what was in my package that I had to order online. Paul used to change it up all the time. So I didn't know what was in my package that I had purchased online. So I bought another pack of papers when I got there. I thought, oh, I don't have enough. I like to play three. And I think I only have two. So while I was online, before checking myself, I went ahead and I bought another pack of papers. And when I opened it, I had four packs of paper.

[00:14:17] But the problem is, is like, well, I can't give up one of the packs because if I give up one of the packs, that could have been the pack that won. So that's my own little issue. So for that day, I had to sit there. I had to play all four packs. And that's not my comfort level. There are a lot of people who play five packs. My friend Susie loves to play a lot of packs. She loves to be moving that whole time, moving up and down, up and down, up and down. And for me, that is incredibly stressful.

[00:14:45] And that takes the fun out of playing bingo. But I had the four packs. And like I said, I'm just too superstitious to not give away that extra pack that I inadvertently purchased. So now I got to play all four packs. And I'm sitting there for the whole day, just moving and moving and moving. By the end of the day, which again, at Bosco Tech is a long freaking day, or used to be a long freaking day, I was so tired. I was so tired. But like I said, I couldn't give it up.

[00:15:12] So the other thing that happened with the packs happened the other day. This happened at the Samoan bingo the other night when I was there. And I hate to admit this. I absolutely am somewhat embarrassed to admit that. But they had a buy-in. It was a $60 buy-in. And for that $60, you got three packs. Now, a lot of times when I go there and you do the buy-in, you're going to go up there and you're going to tell them, you can get up to a certain amount of packs, but you don't have to take it. So I would go up there and give them the $60 or whatever. I think it was before it was like $40. But whatever.

[00:15:42] I would pay the money. And I'd say, I just want two packs. Because they play a lot of different games, which I like. They play a lot of different unusual games. But when you're trying to remember all those patterns and they're going relatively fast for me, it's just hard to keep up those patterns when you've got three packs. I've learned from experience that I'm good with two packs, right? They're going to go three in the corner. They're going to go a triple-double. They're going to do all this stuff. And it's just too hard for my way old brain to keep up with. So I know that I am a two-pack girl.

[00:16:11] So the other night they had the special event. And because of that, they had put everything together ahead of time, right? So you're not going up and buying. You've already prepaid for this event. So all they have to do is hand it out to you. So when they handed it out to me, I realized I had three packs in the bag. And I'm like, oh, shoot. Again, I did it at Bosco Tech. And I've learned I cannot do more than what I know that I can do. What's my comfort level? And Bosco Tech is three. That's fine. But at the Samoan Bingo, it's only two. I can only do the two.

[00:16:40] But here's where you get bad. Like I said, somewhat embarrassed to mention. But I had the extra pack. And I'm sure there were people there who could play an extra pack. So I'm sure I could have said, hey, anybody here want to play an extra pack? There were people there playing four packs, five packs, even six packs. The lady next to me, I don't know how she was doing it. She was moving. But I didn't ask anybody if they wanted the extra pack.

[00:17:06] And sad to say, the reason was, if I'd have given somebody that extra pack and they were sitting close to me and they won on that pack, I would have been so angry. Not angry for them. The angry that I let it go or that I didn't keep the pack. So I'm not even going to lie. I absolutely did not give anybody that extra pack because I was afraid that if I did, they would win on it and I would be mad at myself for not having kept it. So anyway, that's my little confession about what my superstitions are.

[00:17:36] And again, that's my main one. I don't like to get something and not keep it or play it. You know, I feel like if I give something up, then something's going to happen. So that's the sad story of my beliefs and my habits. But anyway, those are some of the key, I think, superstitions, habits, whatever you want to call it, that you'll see a lot in bingo. And I think it's really, really quite interesting. And just stuff that continues to make the game of bingo and the community of bingo a fun place to be.

[00:18:04] So that's it for this week's episode of The Broke Bingo Addict. I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope you'll come back for the next episode. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye. Bye.