Million-dollar jackpot fuels Kinsmen bingo card-buying frenzy

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This article was published 26/08/2020 (2247 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the first time in its 50-year history, Kinsmen Jackpot Bingo hopes to make someone a millionaire Saturday evening.

Tickets for Saturday’s game are sold out everywhere, and cards for the Sept. 5 game have sold out online. Bingo organizers plan to ship tickets for the Sept. 5 and Sept. 12 games to stores by the end of the week.

A blackout in 50 or fewer numbers takes the $1 million jackpot or a share of it in the case of more than a single winner. Starting Saturday and continuing until Dec. 26, blackouts in 51 or more numbers take a guaranteed pot of $20,000 or a share of it. The pot reverts back to its normal $5,000 in the new year.

“It’s been crazy all through July,” said bingo chairman Raj Phangureh. “It’s basically been selling out every week.”

Two-packs of cards cost $10, four-packs $20 and eight-packs sell for $40. One dollar from each card sold goes to the jackpot. Revenue also goes to charities: the bingo raised about $2 million during its last jackpot, where 32 winners shared a record-breaking $640,000 Feb. 1.

This latest jackpot surpassed that record by early July.

“We’ve tried to increase our card capacity over the past couple weeks,” Phangureh said. “That even went unnoticed because it just sold out in the same amount of time.”

The bingo is selling 52,500 cards each week for the last two weeks of August and the first two weeks of September. This is up from the 45,000 they were selling in July and the beginning of August, and up from the 30,000 they were selling before July. During the same time last year, the group was selling about 7,000 cards weekly.

“Judging from the sales, it seems like it’s always going to be a high jackpot from now on, so we’re constantly changing our game to adapt,” Phangureh said.

He said bingo organizers expect to put out 60,000 cards per week in the last two weeks of September.

“I keep on trying to overestimate our sales in the hopes that we can catch up, but I’m not overestimating enough,” Phangureh said. “It keeps growing faster than I can imagine.”

Last year, Phangureh ran Kinsmen Jackpot Bingo with one other staff member. Now, there’s Phangureh, four full-time and five part-time staff. Someone manages the shipping, someone heads customer service, and four people work the phones for sales — one person full time, the other three part time. Several people stuff cards for online sales and outlets.

“We’re trying to make 2020 a better year,” Phangureh said. “(It’s) to kind of remind people that ‘Hey, 2020 can actually end up pretty well,’ and trying to give a little bit more reprise to our players.”

Kinsmen Jackpot Bingo airs on Saturdays at 5:30 p.m. on CTV Winnipeg.

gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca