In this community, all are winners in games of chance

Two groups of people live in this country: those who play bingo and those who don't.

The ones who do don't have anything up on the ones who don't, except for a little more money if they win. Well ... a lot more money if they pot is big.

Take the woman who won the $17,000 progressive pot at St. Monica's Thursday night game. She won it in the year 2000. Instead of taking a trip or buying a nice car, she bought her husband a well-deserved motorized wheelchair, said John Bach, who for 30 years has been working the weekly game at the Carpentersville church with his wife, Beverly. She sells the cards and dabbers.

But, the pots don't have to get that large to convince the non-bingo players to cross the line.

"We usually have about 165 people here a week. Most of them are regulars," she said. "But when the pots get up there, this place gets crazy. Players follow the jackpots. When the pots are up, people would buy the toilet seats if they could."

Never have they reached that amount since. They don't have to, to bring out the true connoisseur. Those are the folks who are happy playing for $75, $100, or the two $500 prizes that are offered each week. They are ecstatic if they win and most are just as happy visiting with their fellow players, munching popcorn, drinking soda pop and dabbing their paper cards with pink or blue dye.

Those are the true bingo players. They keep their eyes on the cards, regardless of their age, disability or gossip they're involved in talking about. They know where all their B-7s, N-44s and G-53s are.

"It's not hard keeping track of the numbers," said Carpentersville resident Alice Lascio. "I've been doing it for more than 30 years. I see a lot of my friends here and I win pretty regularly."

Bingo players like her and the Bachs have been around the circuit so long they can tell you the organizations that still have the weekly games and what the upper Fox Valley was like before bingo was legal in the state.

"Years ago, there was a gentlemen's agreement that set the nights for the games," Beverly said. "If one church or VFW played on Monday and Tuesday, the others would stay away from that day. Not very many of those games are still going."

The Carpentersville Veterans of Foreign Wars post on Lake Marian Road has a Wednesday afternoon game. Catholic Charities of Chicago sponsors a Friday night game at the Milk Pail Village complex along Route 25.

Bingo games were designed as fundraisers for churches, especially the Catholic Church. The proceeds from St. Monica's games go to its education fund.

Before it was legal in Illinois, backroom games were held. That's when true players knew where the action was.

"During the 1960s we had a game like that," Beverly said. "People would come to a closed door, knock on it and say, 'I'm in the club,' and they would be let in."

Most likely, many of the seasoned players who attend St. Monica's games these days honed their skills at "the club." And they learned that bingo is not only a game, but a community where games are cheap, newcomers are welcome, friends are abundant and one number separates winners from losers.

"It's a cheap night out no matter shape the economy is in," Beverly said.

"You can't go to the movies on what you spend here," said Marie Novalinski of Carpentersville. "And the loneliest person can come in, buy some cards, sit down and before you know it, they are talking to people."

And many are yelling at novice number callers like Frances Freemon of East Dundee for periodically calling the wrong game.

Devoted players say all it takes is one night of bingo to make players out of non-players.