Gilman Street Bingo

closed!

I just won $ 2700 at gilman street bingo tonight
I will be back again and again and again and again

Well I probably play bingo here once a week or once every other week and this place is great.
Now the night sessions last from 7pm till roughly 1030pm and the buy-in’s are $ 60 for a complete package of goodies!
You get one machine with tons of cards on the machine!
You get as many packs you can play with on paper!
Two double-​action 4-​packs which pays off $ 2,000 for each.
Three free $ 1,000 show me the money games.
Each regular game pays $ 500 and off course
The side flash board games which normally range from $ 1.00 each-​$ 5.00 each when you buy them off of the volunteers (who are friendly) and they pay-​off about $ 150‑1199
Overall great experience. Not your regular bingo hall baby… no sir!
I love it here… haven’t really tried the food yet but from the looks and smells of it… it seems yummy.
Buy in is kinda pricey but it you win one game you broke even and come up some!

I come here sometimes to play the $.05 bingo machines (kind of similar to slots, but it’s all animated and instead of pulling a handle, you press the «daub» button), but have yet to play an actual bingo session. You can wager a maximum of $ 1 per spin of the machine to win up to $ 250, plus there’s a keno game if slots aren’t your bag. The staff is lazy and apathetic during the day, and given the atmosphere, who could blame them?
Edit: 17 May 2008: The video slots are no longer there; an employee informed me that «they were illegal,» (but I don’t buy that).

In an effort to pack my Spring Break week with one fun activity a day, I set my sights on all the local flavor I’d yet to experience in the East Bay. On my way to the I-​80, I always passed Gilman Street Bingo and thought to myself that I really needed to check it out. Last Monday, I finally made it happen.
This is a true bingo hall (not in a church or community center). They are open seven days a week.
Be sure to call ahead to check the start time as well as that evening’s special. Each day, the bingo packages are different prices. Monday night’s special is a Buy One-​Get One Free deal. For $ 30, you get 4 electronic bingo games and 2 «specials» packs. So come with a friend and really try to avoid odd number groups… we had 5 and were lucky that there was a woman who didn’t have a partner. Everyone else seemed to know the drill and came in pairs.
On weekdays, the fun is scheduled to begin at 6:45 pm. On weekends, I believe there are some games beginning around noon. The official bingo games (not the early bird or pull tab games) started much later… probably around 7:15.
The early bird games had weird payouts. «Rainbows» cost $ 3 for 3 games with 3 cards. Their call sheet said the payout was «60/​40″ which was unclear. My friend won on one of these games and split the pot with another winner… she got $ 12! Another woman right next to us won, too… she got $ 10. I don’t know how that works out!
MAJOR WARNING: I’m a huge fan of the paper cards and bingo dabbers. If you are too, don’t bother coming here!
All of their REGULAR games take place on these really old, ghetto looking „computers.“ These machines take all the fun out of bingo! The caller calls the number, you type it in, and press enter. The machine searches through 500 or so electronic cards and brings the four cards that have the greatest chance of winning to the front. I know that having 500 potential combinations of cards seems like the odds are in your favor… but seriously, these machines ruin the fun of bingo!
The only upsides to these machines is that they keep track of the game your on (e.g., crazy kite, „T“, blackout» so you don’t have to think at all. Also, when you’re one number away from a bingo, the machine blinks wildly alerting you to this fact. However, this also leads to people calling premature bingos because they think the blinking means they won. Sit next to nice-​looking people so you can ask them questions. These machines are very old looking and not intuitively obvious!
I think there were approximately 12 games that were played on the machines. Every payout was $ 250, split if more than one winner. They’d call 3 – 4 regular games and then break for «pull tab» games or «special» games (ranging from 10 – 20 mins). We were at the hall for more than 3 hours (left at 10:45)!!! If you want to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth, you have to stay the bitter end to play all your cards on the machine.
On Monday, 2 «special» packs came with the $ 30 2-​for-​1 deal. These were on paper and required a dabber (which could be purchased at their snack bar for $ 1.10). The «specials» packs were the highlight of the evening since I got to use my trusty dabber. The games had $ 1000 payouts, but were much more intricate. For example, there was a bingo card that had two numbers in each square. To win, you had to get a bingo, but you only one of the numbers in each square had to be called. Another specials game, the «Grand Slam», required four different bingos in four different cards… e.g., 1 bingo in card 1, 2 bingos in card 2, 3 bingos in card 3, and 4 bingos in card 4.
The atmosphere of this hall was much more lax than other bingo halls I’ve been too. When the first game starts, you hear people shushing each other, but by the end of the LONG LONG LOOOOOOONG night, everyone’s a little rowdy. There’s lots of chatting and heckling of the caller and pull tabs sellers. The clientele also seemed significantly younger than most halls (e.g., 30 – 50, not 50+).
The place does have a great snack food bar. Hot sandwiches, hot dogs, cold salads, and drinks/​chips. You can also bring food in… if you forget, there’s Happy Donuts and a quickie mart on the corner, or Walgreens and Chipotle across Gilman.
I didn’t win… but two of my friends did! Damn beginner’s luck! In spite of that, I don’t think I’ll be coming back. The prices are steep and the machines suck!
Words to the wise:
1) Prepare for a long night — 3+ hours!
2) Sit next to people who look nice or chatty. Avoid people with lots of good luck trinkets, 5+ machines, or 10 dabbers… they’re hard core and don’t want to be bothered.
3) Proceed pull tabs with caution. I hear that your chances are better on these, but not all pull tabs assure game play! Try California Criss Cross or California Tic Tac for guaranteed game play (i.e., when the caller pulls balls)!
4) Bring your friends and bring some food! Good luck