Not Your Mother's Bingo

A tense silence falls over the room. Three hundred people sit motionless, eyes down, concentrating on the cards in front of them. Their felt-tipped pens hover over the numbers, ink cobras ready to strike. The air is thick with anticipation, or at least cigarette smoke. Then the man up onstage begins his ritual call: "One and two, 12. All the sixes, 66 ?" Suddenly, the place is alive with movement — hands zipping back and forth, dabbing at the cards with sniper-like precision. Everyone racing to be the first to fill a row, two rows or a full house. Racing to...