When It Comes to Raising Big Money for the County’s High School Programs, There’s Only One Game in Town . . .

Saturday night bingo at Dana Hills High School and the natives are restless. Players, having sat pat a full five minutes past the game’s scheduled start, are pounding bingo cards, coffee cups and rabbits’ feet on tables, demanding action.

To those who shell out $15 or $20 a night, bingo is serious business. To the 15 Orange County High School booster organizations that sponsor bingo nights, it’s big business. To some, most notably the boosters of Dana Hills and Edison, it’s big business.

Dana Hills boosters, who have operated bingo games for the past seven years in the school’s cafeteria on Saturday night, have, among other things, financed a 3,300-seat football stadium and purchased new band and football uniforms with game revenues.

When Edison boosters started their games on a Monday in May of 1985, they fretted about breaking even.

“We were pretty well resigned to losing our shirts that first year,” Edison bingo chairman Dave Hepburn said.

By the end of that first year, Edison showed a $150,000 net profit from bingo, which is distributed to various athletic and academic booster clubs. Hepburn said Edison is well ahead of that pace this year.

And yes, it all came from bingo. That funny game most associate with little old ladies and church halls is now the hottest high school moneymaker since the 50-50 ticket.

Why? Even bingo has not been spared in this age of professionalism and specialization.

“There are professional bingo players, make no doubt about it,” said John Klink, Dana Hills athletic director. “The same people you see playing here, play three to five times a week.”

There’s plenty of bingo money out there, and it has caused schools that are into it or thinking about getting into it, to aggressively market their games.

Huntington Beach High gave roses to every woman who showed up for its first night of bingo in May.

“This is a business. We’re competing against the next guy for the bingo dollar,” said Darrell Stillwagon, Huntington Beach activities director.

Edison offers curbside-to-game site service. Legend has it that Edison Athletic Director Lyman Clower was helping out at bingo one night when he spotted some elderly women making the trek from their cars to the Edison cafeteria. Clower, so the story is told, commandeered a custodian’s motorized cart, put some cushions in the back and began shuttling players back and forth.

“You wouldn’t believe how many people that brought in,” Hepburn said. “News of that spread real quick. People were impressed by our thoughtfulness. That sells.”

The cart is now equipped with Edison Charger football cushions and is driven by a security officer. There are plans for painting it green and gold, the school’s colors.

Pull-tab tickets are big these days. Resembling lottery tickets, pull tabs can be instant winners. Some schools attract bingo players with attendance drawings. Others have wheels of fortune, where one spin can win $1,000. There’s free coffee and popcorn, catered dinners and nonsmoking rooms.

“You’ve got to do whatever you can to bring the people in,” said John Healy, Orange County publisher of the Bingo Bugle, a national monthly tabloid. “Bingo has constantly grown in this county, and the more it grows, the more people will have to do to keep or attract customers.”

But how much more can it grow? There are differing opinions.

“It only stands to reason that the more schools that get into it, the more there is a possibility of saturation,” Healy said.

Dana Hills, according to Klink, averaged about 280 players each Saturday. “We were the only game in town.” But as games have grown, including one at nearby Capistrano Valley High, Dana Hills’ weekly attendance average is down to about 230.

“It’s to be expected,” Klink said. “As additional schools get involved, it’s going to spread out the clientele.”

As yet, a school booster organization has not lost money or gone under, but the quick, spectacular success of Edison appears to be a one-time thing. Huntington Beach High, roses or no roses, is still looking to break even. The game’s organizers still have to pay off the six families who put up $18,000 to start the operation.

One high school bingo official said: “It’s just a matter of time before a school goes under and loses a bunch of money. Right now, everyone is pretty well riding the gravy train. But more and more people are jumping on, and pretty soon someone is going to get burned.”

But Hepburn thinks if you put out a good product, you’ll continue to prosper. And Edison bingo has continued to do just that. According to Hepburn, attendance averages have never been higher. And Edison competes in the most competitive high school bingo region in Orange County. Every Sunset League school booster organization, with the exception of Marina, has bingo. And Marina apparently will start next year.

“The most important thing is that people want to know they have as good a chance as the next guy to make some money,” Hepburn said. “You give that to people, bend over backwards to please them, and they’ll come back. It doesn’t matter who is putting on a bingo game.”

Hepburn stresses ultra-professionalism with the volunteers who work each Monday night. A bingo game could be doomed, he says, if players sense the game is being taken less than seriously. Hepburn has become such a noted authority on the subject that other schools have searched him out. He has helped set up bingo programs at neighboring schools. It’s not as easy as setting up a few folding chairs and getting a guy to call out numbers.

Boosters must apply for nonprofit organization status with the state. There are reams of paper work to be done, as well as advertising and research. It took Edison about 18 months to set up its program. Hepburn figures he hit a different bingo game every night during that period, seeing what worked and what didn’t.

He has helped set up programs at other Sunset League schools, with the stipulation that they not hold their bingo on Monday night.

What scares Hepburn is that bingo games may be victims of their own success. Schools could one day depend on the game to fulfill its financial needs.

“That’s really a very frightening thought,” he said. “Anyone who knows anything about bingo, knows that one discourteous volunteer, one screwed-up game where customers feel like they are getting a raw deal, could doom an entire program. . . . This could all be gone tomorrow.

“We have never been anything but a supplemental source of funding for the school’s boosters. We have it written into our bylaws that if the school board holds back money normally given to the school because of bingo, we shut down immediately.”

But for now, life in the bingo lane is fast and lucrative.