Last card: United Commercial Travellers call it quits on bingo
The United Commercial Travellers have called their last bingo.
Henry Walsh, chairman of the UCT Bingo Pictonian Council 879, said after 18½ years, it has been decided to end the fundraiser, which has returned $1.4 million to the local community.
“It gets to a point that the sales are down and it wasn’t financially feasible to continue it,” he said Wednesday.
Walsh said there are many factors for the low card sales in particular the number of other fundraisers that currently take place in the county, including all the Chase the Ace jackpots.
He said UCT Bingo was broadcast on EastLink TV, but there are many other television options out there now and then broadcast time changed from Tuesdays for an hour and half to Wednesday and Thursday 6 to 7 p.m.
“People who work don’t rush home to watch bingo,” he said. “People are in their habit of watching the news at 6 p.m. There are a lot of factors that have made a change in it for us.”
Walsh said sales have dwindled over the years and there are gaming regulations that stipulate how much profit needs to be generated – UCT bingo has fallen below that level.
Through the monies raised, more than 140 organizations and causes have been helped out over that time. Some of these groups include LORDA, VON, United Way Bikes For Kids, the Pictou County Christmas
Fund as well as support for Summer Street Industries and Special Olympics.
“We put out $1.4 million in 18 years by doing bingo,” he said, in addition to the money that went to bingo winners. “We are sad to let it go but we are just at a point where what we are paying in the prize, we are not getting with the money coming in.”
Walsh said he remembers the first bingo he called on Oct. 13, 1998, in their building on MacLean Street.
“I never called bingo in my life,” he said. “I didn’t know what it was all about, but we got through it.”
But the end of the bingo era doesn’t mean an end to the UCT’s work in the county.
“We will continue to be active in the community,” he said. “Our motto is People Helping People.”