WOODLAND HILLS : Bingo Room Reopens and Charities Win

More than a year after it was shut down for violating state charity laws, a bingo parlor is back in business, with a new management that turns its profits into aid for the fatherless and the drug addicted.

West Valley Bingo at Oxnard Street and De Soto Avenue, once the top-grossing bingo hall in the city, is now run by Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles and the Cri-Help homes for drug-addicted adults, which have successfully distanced themselves from the previous manager, said Mark Wild, executive director of Big Brothers.

“We’re a totally different charity,” Wild said. “We have nothing to do with (the former manager). And we’ve never had a problem with people confusing us. The bingo grapevine is even better than ours.”

The parlor’s previous manager, Identity Inc., was forced to close shop in June, 1992, after the city Department of Social Services found that some profits were given to board members and volunteers, instead of to its recipient programs for disabled children. State law requires that all profits from bingo be turned over to charity.

For Big Brothers, a program matching fatherless boys with young male volunteers, and Cri-Help, the games have provided crucial income since they reopened the center in February. The two organizations also run a bingo center in North Hollywood, which last year brought in about $500,000 to each, said Chuck Lehman, Cri-Help’s development director.

As public agencies statewide have pulled back funds from many nonprofit groups, bingo games have taken up some of the slack, Lehman said.

“It’s something that is being done by more and more organizations,” Lehman said. “On any given night in Los Angeles, there are probably 15 to 20 games going on.”

For the average bingo player, though, this is not just a charity event. It’s the thrill of gambling, and the shot at winning $250 each game, that brings them back. Under glaring fluorescent lights, players at long tables lock their attention on their cards. There is little idle chatter.

“I feel better knowing the money the place makes is going to help someone, sure,” Dee Dee Sinkay of Chatsworth said, without looking up from her cards. “But I come to play.”