WASILLA — “Bingo!”

An excited woman lets out a small squeal and does a little dance in her chair Thursday while her win is verified. It’s a ritual repeated many times nightly as bingoholics find their fix at one of two Valley outlets — Bingo Mania and Wasilla Bingo.

The winner calling out this bingo won part of the nightly $3,500 pot awarded at Wasilla Bingo, the Valley’s newest outlet for the game. Wasilla Bingo opened in January. While much of the national and state news is dominated by the economy, the lure of the random chance game brings dozens to play nightly at the local parlors.

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“Here, we just have a good time with the customers and all of us,” said Christine Marchione, an employee at Bingo Mania, which opened about two years ago.

Although there are people who take their bingo seriously, for most the draw is the casual, social nature of the room, Marchione said.

“It’s just fun. It gets people out of the house,” she said. “Sure, some come to win. We have people who come every single day, but a lot of players come here just to get with their friends and have a good time.”

That’s the case for Ian Brown, who sits in the middle of back row of tables at Wasilla Bingo. He calls it his “lucky spot” even though he’s never won a game.

“I like it here because there’s just a wide variety of people,” Brown said. “I come once a week.”

When asked what keeps him coming back each week, Brown admitted it’s “to get some cash, but I haven’t won yet.”

Unlike some of the serious bingo players surrounding him, Brown plays a single sheet for each game. A sheet contains six grids with random numbers. Brown carefully marks his single sheet while players around him focus intently on multiple bingo cards, including some who purchase electronic versions of the sheets.

“It can get crazy sometimes,” Brown said about some of the games that pay out up to $1,000.

Louise Iveson lives in the Valley and is a regular at Wasilla Bingo. Along with Mary Noa, the pair sit to the right of Brown at the end of the row and are considered the “pros” in the room. Both said they play bingo in the Valley and in Anchorage, but prefer the local games because they know the people and the atmosphere isn’t as intense.

“I like just getting out and around these people. It’s fun,” Iveson said, adding she’s also in it to win it. “I’m all about winning. I do both (types of cards; paper and electronic). But we like it here. It’s cheaper than in Anchorage and it’s so nice here.”

Rituals and superstitions

Along with purchasing a large number of bingo cards, Iveson’s luck is bolstered by her rituals. She sets up her area in a certain way that includes her lucky stones. She places a series of seven polished stones in a straight line over her paper bingo sheets — three citrine on each side with a flat, circular piece of jade in the middle.

Noa holds a trinket that she calls “the luckiest charm in the whole, wide world.”

That luck paid off recently, Noa said, when she won $500 on just one 50-cent bingo sheet.

“It’s lucky, that’s all I know,” she said. “I forgot to bring it one time and didn’t win at all.”

Besides lucky charms and stones, players try to channel their luck through troll dolls and photos of children and family members, Marchione said.

“We have people who don’t like it when you tell them ‘good luck,’” she said, adding that others are superstitious about being touched or talked to while a game is in progress.

“Oh, yeah, there are lots of superstitions,” said John Erickson, owner/manager of Wasilla Bingo. “Some people have to have a particular seat and some have their knickknacks.”

In reality, there is a way to garner more “luck” when playing bingo, Erickson said.

“It’s amazing how it works out that the more sheets you buy, the more luck you have.”

Noa may have her lucky trinket and be a bingo regular, but she said she has nothing on her mother-in-law, who plays so many bingo cards at a time that she sits on a skateboard and rolls back and forth behind the table to keep track of her sheets.

Bingo and more

The goal at any bingo parlor is the same: have fun and possibly win some money. Those who play regularly at the two Valley outlets are in for vastly different experiences.

As the latest in the mix, Wasilla Bingo boasts the latest technology, including cameras showing every move of the numbered balls on state-of-the-art flat screen monitors. There are also two rooms separated by glass keeping the smoking and nonsmoking sections separate.

Bingo Mania is open every day of the week, including a second late session on Fridays and Saturdays, Marchione said. But it’s the free prime rib on Fridays that’s been very popular.

“We get quite a good crowd on Fridays for the free prime rib,” she said. “People come just for the dinners.”

On Saturday’s, Bingo Mania also loads up the Cash Cube, a large Plexiglas box a person can stand in while $5,000 in cash is blown around, Marchione said. The lucky person in the cube has 30 seconds to grab as much money as he or she can.

At both locations, a portion of the proceeds raised goes to local nonprofit causes.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.