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Under-threat venues are as much community centres as gambling houses, with Tooting’s art-deco site a cathedral to bingo
IT’S Monday night in Tooting and a crackle of anticipation ripples through the vast art-deco temple to bingo as “eyes down” is called.
Armed with a dabber and a book of bingo cards in the packed house of 420 regulars, I’m soon struggling hopelessly to keep up with the frenetic flow of numbers.
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Yet grandmother Chantal Ramon assures me that a night at Buzz Bingo is not all about winning.
In fact, this sprawling Grade 1- listed South London venue, which once hosted performances by The Beatles and Frank Sinatra, is as much a community centre as it is a gambling house.
Widow Chantal, 78, who has driven five miles from the South London suburb of Sutton for her bingo fix, revealed: “It’s a lovely place, just to socialise and relax.
“It’s especially important to me since I lost my husband Jose.
“Instead of sitting at home in front of the box, I come out and meet people.
“I’ve been coming for 30 years and try to get here five days a week. The staff miss me if I’m not here — it’s nice to know.”
Now, like many here, she is worried Chancellor Rachel Reeves will launch a raid on gambling taxes in her November 26 Budget that could force bingo halls to shutter for good.
Backing The Sun’s Save Our Bets campaign, she added: “I don’t drink or smoke, Bingo is the one little pleasure I have.
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“Putting more tax on bingo is not fair on older people. If this place closed, it would uproot so many lives.”
With online bingo and slot gaming machines also part of its gambling portfolio, Buzz Bingo fears a mauling in this month’s Budget.
CEO Dominic Mansour, 49, revealed: “Last year we paid around £63million to the taxman — almost a third of our entire year’s turnover.
“We are still recovering from the National Insurance hit we took last year, and any further tax rises would be existential for our business.”
The Buzz Bingo chief says it would not just threaten his 2,500 staff but the painters, builders and decorators working on a current £50million refurbishment of the firm’s clubs.
The company is already clobbered with at least four different gambling taxes. There are fears that the Chancellor could raise some levies to as much as 50 per cent.
Miss the Tower of London if you have to — but don’t miss this.
It currently has 79 bingo halls, on high streets from Aberdeen to Plymouth — down from 137 before Covid hit. Some four million players still visit every year.
But the jewel in the crown is undoubtedly Tooting.
It is a cathedral to bingo, with The Times calling its Gothic interior “as dazzling as the House of Lords”.
I am greeted at the sweeping stairwell at its entrance by genial general manager Shiva Jeevah, 60, who tells me: “This place wouldn’t have survived without bingo.”
Built as the Granada Tooting picture house in 1931, the art-deco masterpiece was considered Britain’s most spectacular cinema.
Architecture critic Ian Nairn said in his 1966 guide to London’s buildings: “Miss the Tower of London if you have to — but don’t miss this.”
In the 1950s it became a concert venue. Frank Sinatra played his first ever UK date here in 1953.
Other famous acts who beat a path to Tooting include The Beatles and Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Little Richard, Roy Orbison and The Beach Boys.
Shiva tells me he got his first job in a bingo hall shortly after arriving in the UK as a student from Sri Lanka 45 years ago. “Our customers are like a family,” he added. “If a regular is missing for a few days, me and my staff ask after them.
“A few years ago I hadn’t seen someone for a while and we went to the house and they were lying on the floor inside. The police broke the door down and saved her life.”
Clubs will struggle to stay open and it will end up with staff down the dole office.
Shiva says the clientele skews toward older people in the afternoons but in the evenings the Gen Z crowd come because “they like the prices”.
On Mondays, a burger or hot dog with chips is a fiver. A pint of Carling is £4.40. It is £32 to play for an evening session — with a paper book of bingo cards, and 12 chances to win £1,000, over the course of the night.
Shiva shows me to a table in the cavernous main hall where a bingo caller holds court on a raised platform.
In between games, the jaunty theme tune from TV’s Bullseye rings out.
A family of four — including two youngsters who look in their early twenties — sit on a table nearby.
Then we are off. In these politically correct times, the bingo lingo seems to have been dispensed with. There is “two fat ladies” or “your place or mine”.
Earlier, builder Malcolm Gillman had assured me bingo was a “game of chance”, with “no skill involved”.
I beg to differ, Malcolm.
Frantically dabbing at six cards’ worth of numbers, I am left trying to remember the digits I have not yet marked off.
Soon, from amid the rows of packed tables, a shout of “Yes!” rings out.
We have a winner and it is not me.
Malcolm, 65, who drives the eight miles from Purley to Tooting three times a week to play, added: “If your numbers come up, you win. It’s as simple as that. I won £3,500 here one evening.
“I’ve been coming here since I was 20. It’s a great night out — you meet so many people.”
As for a potential tax raid on bingo by Ms Reeves, he added: “Clubs will struggle to stay open and it will end up with staff down the dole office.
“It will mean less tax for the Chancellor in the long run.
“Pubs are going, too. We’ll all end up sitting indoors doing nothing.”
Sisters Rose Miller, 70, and Marilyn McDonald, 71, have been coming to bingo for more than 40 years.
Rose said: “It’s a lovely family atmosphere here.”
Marilyn — whose biggest bingo win was £10,000 — added: “You make so many friends.
“I absolutely support The Sun’s Save Our Bets. The Chancellor should leave bingo alone.”
Mum-of-one Rose agrees, adding: “We love an evening out here.
“We’re spending our own cash which we’ve worked hard for and which has already been taxed.”
Grainne Hurst, chief executive of the Betting and Gaming Council, warns the close-knit community of bingo enthusiasts like the one I witnessed in Tooting is under threat from any tax hikes.
She said: “Campaigners are calling for a 138-per-cent tax hike on gaming.
“Such a move would punish ordinary players and put at risk the jobs and investment that support this much-loved pastime.”
For many I spoke to in South London, Buzz Bingo is more like a second home.
Retired chef Jennifer Welch Austin, 64, who visits as often as four times a week, revealed: “I meet friends here and the staff are lovely.
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“Shiva comes around offering cups of tea.
“If this place closed, I’d miss it so much.”
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