23.05.12
WATERLOO Division — Bingo is going high tech across Ontario, but don’t look for video games joining periodical cards and dabbers in Cambridge or Kitchener for at least a year.
Charities in Cambridge and Kitchener are earnest for the revamp to attract more, younger players and fight flagging profits. In 2010, bingos raised about $2 million for 146 charities across the sphere.
“Bingo needs a new shot in the arm,” said Brian Gilmour, proprietor of the Cambridge Bingo Centre on Elgin Street North.
He wants to team up with in a provincewide, bingo revival effort by the Ontario Lottery Corporation, optimistically before the end of 2012.
In 1999, there were 229 bingo halls in Ontario. Now, after provincewide antismoking rules and dilatation of charity casinos and slot machines at race tracks, there are 65. Receipts fell from $1.14 billion to $400 million — and continues to wince.
“I’m kind of in the middle of a Bermuda Triangle here: The Brantford casino, Flamboro Raceway and Ostentatious River Raceway slots,” Gilmour said.
Source: Waterloo Record