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Bingo returns to Osage gaming

September 25, 2006
Bingo returns to Osage gaming. Check it out:
(Tulsa World (OK) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Sep. 25--Inside the new event center at the Osage Nation Million Dollar Elm Casino on the Tisdale Expressway, the pace is slower and the room is quieter, but the jackpots are still green.



The Osage Nation has revived the blotter version of bingo in Tulsa. The Osage Nation Enterprise Board made the decision a few months ago, Osage Nation Chief Jim Gray said.

"We turn a modest profit, but we mainly reinstituted it to make use of our event center when we're not using it," Gray said. "We also considered the social aspect of it, too."

Byron Bighorse, the casino's special events manager, said Million Dollar Elm began paper bingo Aug. 7. The traditional game, which is played on Sunday through Thursday nights, draws between 200 to 400 patrons a night, he said.

"Usually, our best nights are Sunday, but don't let the setting fool you, these little ladies are serious about their bingo," Bighorse said. "We're drawing people out here who probably wouldn't come out to Million Dollar Elm if it weren't for the old-fashioned bingo."

Although most of the electronic games in tribal casinos are bingo-based, the Class II machines are run by preprogrammed computer chips. In the Osage events center, the traditional bingo is either paper or electronic, which uses a video screen.

The bingo caller sits above the crowd and announces the numbers, which are picked electronically and flashed onscreen.

The Tulsa bingo operation has about 15 employees and is the only traditional bingo game that the tribe runs inside its casinos in Hominy, Sand Springs and Pawhuska.

The bingo jackpots start at $200 and increase to $5,000, Bighorse said. The players are generally older women.

Alcoholic drinks are not available in the events center, but patrons can buy them inside the adjoining casino and bring them into the bingo game.

"People sometimes want to get more out of their $20," Bighorse said. "In the casino, they might throw $20 in a machine and have it gone in a few minutes; here it can last all night long."

On the nights with no paper bingo, the 15,000-square-foot events center is used for concerts. It also has been the host of two televised boxing matches, officials said.

The advent of electronic gaming machines has reduced blotter bingo significantly in the state. Paper bingo is offered by roughly eight of the 38 Oklahoma tribes, among them the Choctaw, Comanche and the Seneca-Cayuga.

In Tulsa, the Cherokee Nation and Musocgee (Creek) Nation discontinued paper bingo almost two years ago.

Tribes don't offer the only local paper bingo games. Traditional bingo fans can still play at Travelers Bingo and Super T Bingo in Tulsa.

Copyright (c) 2006, Tulsa World, Okla.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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