Neutralizing Marginally Deviant Behavior: Bingo Players and Superstition Kim M. King, Ph.D. Hiram College

Bingo is one of the most popular and most accepted forms of gambling in the United States today. Yet, despite its popularity, many bingo players are not completely comfortable with the moral "rightness" of their actions. This participant observation and interview study spanning a 5 year period shows how bingo players use superstitious strategies, such as feelings, hunches and psi, attitudes, and luck to neutralize their marginally deviant behaviors.

Bingo. What comes to mind is a simple game, played at children's birthday parties or by senior citizens at church gatherings or retirement community socials. An air of harmlessness surrounds this activity. Bingo is a game like m a n y other games, except in bingo winners usually receive prizes or small sums of money as an added bonus. Its "harmlessness" is borne out by the public's opinion of bingo. Even when considering bingo as a form of gambling (where admission fees are charged and winners receive a portion of the monies collected) the American public seems quite tolerant of this activity. Maureen Kallick et al. (1976) found that bingo was, by far, the most accepted form of gambling, with 68 percent of adult Americans favoring its legalization. Since 1988, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and 46 states in the

Send Reprint Requests to: Department of Sociology/Anthropology, Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio 44234.

Journal of Gambling Studies Vol. 6(1), Spring 1990 9 1990 Human Sciences Press

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United States have allowed the operation of bingo games and bingo is legal in all 10 provinces in Canada (Davis and LeFleur, 1988). Perhaps the fastest growing bingo games are those operated on Indian reservations and trust land. Although controversial, and opposed by many bingo operators (see Sullivan, 1984), these big-time games are virtually free of state restrictions (Rumbolz, 1988) and can offer jackpot prizes of $20,000 or more (Reinhold, 1985). The key to this vast acceptance lies in the charitable aspects of the game. Modern bingo parlors have been able to carry over the image of "harmlessness" that characterizes the childhood version by stressing that all proceeds collected as a result of bingo are put to good use. Indeed, the majority of states allowing bingo to be played for money require that at least a portion of the profits be used for "charitable" purposes. Some parlors have learned to exploit this regulation by advertising where the money goes. One such parlor in Cleveland, Ohio distributes ballpoint pens to all its patrons with the following message engraved in gold: You are a winner every time Helping educate young boys and girls [St. Patrick's] Bingo-Friday and Sunday The mere fact that states have written "for charity only" into bingo legislation, and parlors use charity as propaganda to lure players into their halls, suggest that there is another, less saintly side to bingo. Looming under the positive "doing good for others" image of bingo is the recognition that on some level, bingo is gambling and gambling can be potentially problematic. For the state, the fear is that unregulated bingo will fall prey to organized crime (see Hanover, 1979). At the community level, fears have been expressed by local police and citizens about bingo parlors bringing in undesirables, and about fights and robberies taking place inside and outside the halls (King, 1985). And probably most salient are the fears of individual players, fears that include losing self-control, becoming addicted, and committing the "sins" of gambling. These fears are also evident in the way players "account" for their behavior. An account is a "linguistic device employed whenever an action is subject to valuative inquiry" (Scott and Lyman 1968, p. 46).

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I n the b i n g o parlor, accounts are s t a t e m e n t s m a d e b y p a r t i c i p a n t s which d o w n p l a y the self-interest aspects involved in p l a y i n g b i n g o a n d / or e m p h a s i z e the g a m e ' s charitable n a t u r e . C o n s i d e r the following accounts. I'm not afraid of bingo. It keeps me away from alcohol, from the bars--that's evil. Flirting at the bars, being unfaithful-- that's evil. When I'm at bingo I think of nothin' but bingo. No evil thoughts, nothin' but bingo. I asked my pastor if bingo was bad and she said that if it goes for a good cause then its not bad. N o t e v e r y o n e "accounts" for their p l a y in this m a n n e r . F o r e x a m ple, one p l a y e r d u r i n g an interview for this study states, "All y o u n e e d is to win one t i m e a n d y o u get h o o k e d for life." A n o t h e r p l a y e r was o b s e r v e d p a c k i n g her b i n g o chips a n d d a b b e r s into a b r o w n p a p e r bag. As she was d o i n g this she stated, "I don't w a n t m y n e i g h b o r s to k n o w t h a t I p l a y bingo. Its not s o m e t h i n g to b r a g a b o u t . " P e r h a p s the m o s t d r a m a t i c case was the p l a y e r w h o confided in m e that he would no longer be p l a y i n g bingo. I've got to change my ways. I've stopped bingo and now I need to quit being tempted by women and spirits. T h e c o n c e r n in this w o r k is with the m o r a l a m b i g u i t y a n d a m b i v a lent feelings s u r r o u n d i n g b i n g o a n d with the p a r t i c i p a n t s ' a t t e m p t s at dealing with such feelings. Vicki A b t a n d colleagues (1985) show that, in o u r culture, all f o r m s o f g a m b l i n g are p r o n e to an a m b i v a l e n t status to s o m e degree, a n d L a s c h (1979) suggests that all g a m e s m a y be seen as p r o b l e m a t i c : The usefulness of games makes them offensive to social reformers, improvers of public morals or functionalist critics of society like Veblen, who saw in the futility of upper-class sports anachronistic survivals of militarianism and prowess. Yet, the "futility" of play, and nothing else, explains its appeal . . . Games quickly lose their charm when forced into the service of education, character development, or social improvement (p. 182). M o r a l a m b i g u i t y can be seen as a series o f conflicts or tensions b e t w e e n good a n d evil. L e g a l versus illegal, m o r a l versus i m m o r a l ,

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controlled versus uncontrollable, altruistic versus hedonistic--all these are variations on the basic theme. The terms "charity" and "selfinterest" have been used here to engulf all these contradictions, for charity is the guise under which all modern bingo games are possible and self-interest represents all the potential fears of the individual. Bingo players use m a n y techniques to neutralize the self-interest aspects of the game. Neutralization and techniques people use to make a deviant or potentially deviant activity less problematic have been part of the social psychological literature on deviance for some time. C. Wright Mills, for example, discusses vocabularies of motive and shows that motives "are w o r d s . . . [that] stand for anticipated situational consequences of questioned conduct" (1940, p. 904). Inherent in this concept are the ideas that, 1) people, at some cognitive level, know the "rightness" or "wrongness" of behavior as judged by others, and 2) to continue engaging in that behavior they must find some way to make the wrong behavior right. Gresham Sykes and David Matza (1957) discuss some of the ways wrong behavior can be made right. They refer to these as techniques of neutralization. "Denial of responsibility" includes the case where people claim that they were not responsible for the consequences of the act. In "denial of injury," people claim that the behavior was permissible since no one was harmed. If people relieve themselves of guilt by blaming the victim, they are using "denial of the victim." "Condemnation of the condemners" includes the case where people claim that the rules are unfair. Finally, "appeal to higher loyalties" is used when people emphasize the positive consequences of the problematic behavior. Marvin Scott and Sanford L y m a n (1968) expand this notion even further and hold that there are two major types of neutralization techniques: justifications and excuses. Justifications are used to make a normally immoral act moral and include the last four of Sykes and Matza's techniques of neutralization. Excuses are used for relieving one's responsibility for an act and include "appeals to accidents," "appeals to biological drives," "appeals to defeasibility," and "scapegoating." Finally, J o h n Hewitt and Randall Stokes (1975) point out that techniques of neutralization, justifications and excuses usually come into play after the person commits an act of deviance. Yet, humans have the ability to anticipate the consequences of their actions and

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often begin the neutralization process before the deviant act occurs. Hewitt and Stokes discuss disclaimers as "verbal devices employed to ward off and defeat in advance doubts and negative typifications which may result from intended conduct" (1975, p. 3). Disclaimers include; "hedging" where people make it clear that they are only minimally committed to their forthcoming action; "credentialing" where individuals claim that they have special qualifications which entitle them to engage in the act; "sin licenses" which allow people to break the rules on certain occasions; "cognitive disclaimers" where people reassure others that they have not lost their cognitive capacity no matter how strange the forthcoming act seems; and "appeals to the suspension of judgement" where persons urge others to suspend judgement until the act is complete and the full meaning can be made known. In other works I have shown how bingo players give accounts, emphasize fairness, and stress cooperation as ways of taking the negative labels out of bingo (see King 1985, 1987). Here, I would like to focus on how bingo players use superstition and magic, not only as ways to increase their winnings, but as neutralization techniques which actually allow them to continue to play the game.

METHOD

The following information was collected at fourteen bingo parlors in the Cleveland, Ohio area and one in Chapel Hill, North Carolina from 1981 through 1986. All of these parlors were visited at least once during a bingo session. The Chapel Hill parlor was studied in-depth from January, 1984 through February, 1985 and two Cleveland parlors were studied in-depth from August, 1985 through July, 1986. The primary methods used to gather data were participant observation and interviewing. After obtaining permission from the personnel in charge of the games, I bought cards, entered the bingo parlor as a player, and observed while playing bingo. After the session I wrote detailed field notes of m y observations and conversations with other players. I also interviewed twenty players, five workers and three local police patrolling the games. All interviews were semi-structured and were geared at uncovering, among other things, information about how the participants came to be involved in bingo, and the pros and cons associated with bingo games in the area.

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Bingo is played on a card divided into twenty-five squares each containing one number (except for the middle space which is "free"). At the top of the first column of squares is the letter "B," the second "I," the third "N," the fourth "G," and the last "O." Hence, the name BINGO. One person is designated as the caller and in games where money is exchanged, the caller does not play any cards. The caller's job is to take randomly selected balls with numbers on them from a ball machine (hopper) and announce the number to the players. Players check their cards for the number. The winner is the first person to cover up a predesignated "picture" of numbers. There may be more than one winner per game. In that event, prizes and money are split accordingly. In most parlors, each player must buy a minimum number of cards. Prices may vary according to the color of the card. White cards are the cheapest but also pay the least if one wins on them. Each player's odds of winning are determined in part by how m a n y cards he or she plays versus the total number of cards being played that evening. A session consists of ten to twenty regular games plus a number of specials. Bingo is legal in the vast majority of states and games are typically run by non-profit organizations such as churches, synagogues, missions, and a variety of service organizations such as the Knights of Columbus and the Sertoma Club. The actual place where bingo is played varies depending on the sponsors. Churches tend to hold games in gymnasiums, cafeterias or classrooms linked by public address systems, while service organizations are likely to rent party halls. Bingo parlors also vary in terms of the numbers of players who attend each session. The Chapel Hill parlor drew an average crowd of 135, while Cleveland parlors ranged from 75 to 400 players per session. All the parlors visited had m i n i m u m attendance stipulations cutting prize monies if less than the m i n i m u m number of players were in attendance. Bingo players come in all ages, colors and sizes. In Ohio, games are open to anyone over 18 years of age. North Carolina parlors allow minors if accompanied by a parent. The racial breakdown of any parlor is due in part to the racial composition of the neighborhood. In Cleveland, for example, parlors located in white neighborhoods have few blacks in attendance while blacks may be seen in greater numbers in parlors in more racially integrated neighborhoods. Approximately

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60 to 70 percent of the players are female and the majority of these females are middle-aged. Males who play tend to be older than the females, often of retirement age. Perhaps 70 percent of bingo players are "regulars" who play three to seven nights per week. Costs per session can run from 10 to 200 dollars, depending on the n u m b e r of cards and specials puchased. The majority of players report spending 25 to 30 dollars per session.

CHANCE AND SUPERSTITION

Bingo, like roulette, craps and other forms of gambling, is essentially a game of chance, where the player's actions to a greater or lesser degree, have little to do with the outcome. Games of chance, as described by Caillois are games where the "player is entirely passive, he does not deploy his resources skill, muscle or intelligence. All he need do is wait, in hope and trembling, the cast of the die" (1961, p. 17). Researchers studying such games in America and England, however, have found that the players of chance games are far less than passive. Henslin (1967) for example, found that crapshooters develop strategies for maximizing their winnings, based partly on known probabilities and partly on other factors consistent with their belief system regarding their control over the dice. Oldman (1974) too, found the English roulette players redefine that game into a game of skill and develop non-arithmetic predictive theories which allow players to manipulate their situation. What is interesting about these findings is the lack of a direct causal relationship between the players' actions and the outcome. Yet, the players believe they have control, albeit varying in degree, over the outcome. Henslin would suggest that if magic is defined as the belief and/or practice in the control over the objects or events by verbal or non-verbal gestures where there is no empirical connection between the gesture as cause and the object or event as effect, then players do believe in and practice magic (1967, p. 318). The widespread use of magical or superstitious strategies, however, presents potential moral problems for players because it forces players to acknowledge self-interest. Focusing on winning m a y lead others to label one as "greedy," "selfish," and a "compulsive gambler." To overcome these negative labels, players develop strategies for win-

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ning that they believe will lead to victory yet also alleviate any guilt feelings over that victory. Inherent in their magical and superstitious strategies are neutralization techniques and disclaimers which allow players to deny responsibility for winning, appeal to higher loyalties, hedge, etc. Indeed, m a n y of these strategies not only allow players to account for past playing, but, like disclaimers, actually perpetuate future playing by stressing the good, charitable and ironically, the "chance" aspects of the game.

MAGICAL AND SUPERSTITIOUS STRATEGIES

Feelings, Hunches and Psi Psi is "a general term used to identify personal factors or processes in nature which transcend accepted laws" (Winkelman 1982, p. 37). The term is most commonly applied to the forces behind extrasensory perception (the awareness of an object or event not comprehended by any of the five senses) and psychokinesis (the influencing of an object or event without any intermediate energy or instrumentation). For bingo players, the forces of psi become translated into "feelings" about winning or losing (extrasensory perception) and "influencing" the outcome of the game (psychokinesis). Feelings or hunches about future events are quite c o m m o n and are by no means limited to the bingo parlor. But within the parlor, the feelings that players talk about most often are directly related to their own or their friends' winning. Consider, for example, the following statements. As PF sat down at our table he said, "I have a feeling someone at this table is going to win tonight." Sure enough, someone did. It h a p p e n e d to be Red. W e congratulated h i m after he won. PF said, "See! I knew someone would win." (Do you feel that you have a good chance of winning?) Sometimes. It all depends on how I feel and what the circumstances are . . . Sometimes when I go I can feel that I win really win, really win. I can feel it within me, r u n n i n g through me. I can feel I will win. Like when [my friend] said, "I think someone's gonna win tonight." H e could just feel it. (Do you feel you have a good chance of winning?) Well, when I'm close I get very excited. M y adrenaline's flowing. I'm going really good. There's always

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something going in my head saying, "You don't have a chance, you don't have a chance." But a few times (pause) it's a sensation I get. After losing the jackpot game one player said, "At first I didn't think I was gonna win, but then I got one of those feelings like I get when I think [one of my friends] is gonna win. (Pause) I really thought I had it that time." F r o m these statements it is a p p a r e n t that feelings do not always materialize. Players seem aware of the fact that their "special powers" do not always work. Yet, these failures are i m p o r t a n t for they r e m i n d the players of the chance aspects of the game and allow t h e m to d e n y responsibility w h e n they do win, or win m o r e than their share. In these situations, players can and do say, "I don't k n o w how I did it but I won" without feeling guilty. Some players claim to be able to influence fate, albeit unintentionally. F o r example, it is quite c o m m o n for players to count how m a n y n u m b e r s they n e e d to win and tell this i n f o r m a t i o n to their friends. S o m e t i m e s the following happens. At one point I needed two numbers to win. I said, "Hey! Look, I need two." As soon as I said this the caller said, "B2." I laughed because I needed two numbers not B2. A few games later PF said, "I need eight." The caller said "BS." We both laughed because it happened again. He needed eight numbers, not B8. He said, "We must be psychic or something[" A few players have r e p o r t e d that sometimes, as they are waiting for a n u m b e r to be called, they wilt glance at a n u m b e r on one of their cards. M a n y times, the n u m b e r that they glanced at h a p p e n s to be the next n u m b e r called. Perhaps the most interesting case of u n i n t e n t i o n a l fate influencing took place one night some m o n t h s after m y first observations. I was sitting next to a player who had b e e n faithfully playing since the b e g i n n i n g o f the y e a r and had yet to win anything. T h r e e people called bingo on the triple game. T h e s e were followed by m o a n s and groans f r o m the crowd. T h e player sitting next to me was quite disgusted and said, "I'll n e v e r win a game." T h e n he b e g a n to figure out how m u c h he h a d spent so far on bingo. "I've wasted over 100 dollars playing bingo, I should h a v e p u t it to b e t t e r use. (Pause) That's it! I'm not c o m i n g back a n y m o r e . " It was intermission and he got u p to get s o m e t h i n g to drink. D u r i n g intermission d o o r prizes are given away. T h e s e consist o f free

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cards for the following week. The player came back to his seat just as the workers were giving away the last prize. I had been watching his ticket while he was gone and when they called the number for the last prize I knew he had won. I told him to raise his hand. He did and the worker came by to deliver the prize. His friend said, "See, they knew they were going to lose you so they gave you free games to get you to come back next week." The player said, "Yeah, of all the things I could have won (trails off)." While m a n y of these unintentional fate influencing strategies seem like pure coincidence, many players do not see them as such. Rather, these "prove" that bingo is not purely a game of chance, that sometimes players, friends or higher deities looking out for players have some control over the game. Yet, as will be seen later, having only partial control allows players to continue to excuse and disclaim their behavior by denying responsibility over winning, appealing to accidents, and hedging or claiming a minimal commitment to winning. A few players are particularly superstitious and feel they have more than average control over the outcome. One player described his talent as "positive thought waves." Quite simply, positive thought waves involve concentrating and chanting the number or numbers needed to win the game. As he explains. I was playing the T game. I needed two numbers, 064 and B7. I thought real hard (squinting, chanting "064" and softly pounding the table) and 064 came up. I stamped it (mimickingthe motion one makes when marking the numbers). I thought real hard again and B7 came up! For added effectiveness, this player saves all his winning cards and tacks them on his wall. Throughout the week he concentrates on the cards and concentrates on winning. Because of his intense activity, however, denying responsibility for winning is not possible. This player neutralizes his bingo playing by appealing to higher loyalties, stressing the charitable aspects of the game. Bingo is my way to give money to charity . . . A lot of good comes out of the money I donate. Attitudes

Perhaps even more pronounced than some players' claims to traditional paranormal abilities are the various attitudes players hold

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a n d express t o w a r d w i n n i n g . T h e s e attitudes fit u n d e r the c a t e g o r y of superstitious strategies, for players i m p u t e a cause a n d effect relationship b e t w e e n attitudes a n d w i n n i n g . Recall the p l a y e r w h o gives 10 p e r c e n t of h e r w i n n i n g s to the church. I've been playing bingo for eighteen or twenty years. Sometimes I get to thinking that I'll never win. When I first got started, I went a whole year without winning. Then I changed my attitude. I give 10 percent of my winnings to the church. When I win, I put it in an envelope. If you do that, you'll get ahead. T h i s player, as well as m a n y others, believes that holding certain attitudes m a y increase one's chances of w i n n i n g , a n d , at the s a m e time, alleviate a n y guilt feelings o v e r w i n n i n g since they feel that they deserve to win. I n a v e r y real sense, players use Sykes a n d M a t z a ' s (1957) n e u t r a l i z a t i o n t e c h n i q u e of a p p e a l i n g to higher loyalties a n d w i n n i n g is seen as a r e w a r d for living a good life. Players believe that w h a t they do inside a n d outside the b i n g o p a r l o r greatly affects h o w m u c h they win. It is no surprise that m a n y of the attitudes players use as strategies espouse charity. F o r the p l a y e r in the a b o v e e x a m p l e , the 10 p e r c e n t " g u a r a n t e e s " not only future w i n n i n g s but also her salvation. S o m e players agree to split their w i n n i n g s with friends or family m e m b e r s . O t h e r s talk of b u y i n g loved ones presents with the winnings. I n addition to charity, h o n e s t y a n d faith are i m p o r t a n t for winning. The player sitting next to me started telling me about how he was given an extra set of cards. "I spent a long time figuring out which set to give back." I asked him why he wanted to give one back. He replied, "I couldn't kept it, that would make me lose." During a conversation about winning, a player said, "Fives are lucky for me. All week I've been finding hidden five dollar bills in the money customers give me. I gave them back. The customers were grateful. (pause) I win a lot at poker with three fives." The player sitting across from me was wearing an open flannel shirt. Underneath was a tee-shirt with the word "Faith" printed across the front. The "T" in the word faith was made into a cross to symbolize the crucifixion. T h e s e e x a m p l e s suggest that w i n n i n g at b i n g o m a y be seen as a r e w a r d for living the good life. P l a y i n g for a "good cause" is m o r e noble t h a n p l a y i n g for oneself a n d should result in m o r e wins. T h e fear of

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losing m a y be a vital force in keeping players "in line," and losing m a y be an indication of falling out of line. I don't go to bingo anymore. I think I got out of hand. Now I go to [a church sponsored social event] on Fridays. I've stopped drinking and hopefully I'll be able to give these up too (pointing to his cigarettes). Someday I might start playing bingo again, but I've got to change first. In addition to stressing charity, m a n y players feel that, "If you expect to w i n - - y o u won't." This attitude takes m a n y forms. Consider the following: O n e player was telling her friend that she w a n t e d to win so she could b u y some new clothes. I m m e d i a t e l y after saying this she added, "But I shouldn't count on it because if I do I won't win." T h e conversation t u r n e d to the topic of the latest big-time lottery winner. T h e players sitting next to me said, "He didn't expect to win that." I don't get excited in the least until I'm one number away. I generally don't even get excited about that. I'm always expecting someone else to win. One player was getting very close to winning all night but she wasn't winning. This player's husband was talking to another player about this. The player said, "Tell her (your wife) to stay cool." Expectations about w i n n i n g can be affected by whether or not a player is in a winning or losing streak. O l d m a n (1974) found that roulette players develop non-arithmetic probability theories about winning d u r i n g these streaks. Bingo players, too, express these theories, often referred to as the "gambler's fallacy" and the "periodicity of luck." Players who are very close to w i n n i n g in the first few games often feel that, "I'm hot tonight, I'm b o u n d to win something." Likewise, players who only get a few n u m b e r s m a y feel that they are having an "off' night. O n e player was so far from winning she said, "Boy, I should have stayed h o m e tonight." While these theories suggest that closeness leads to winning and vice-versa, another theory suggests the opposite, that w i n n i n g and losing streaks don't last forever, and even one win m a y be followed by m a n y losses. As one player explains,

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Well, you know, everyone waits for these winning streaks. For some people, the streaks come in little spurts, they win a little every week. For others, they can go months without winning then all of a sudden they win a lot. You know, they say, the people who play a lot, that if you play for two months you should win at least once. But you lose a lot more than you win. These expectations about w i n n i n g are i m p o r t a n t in a discussion of moral ambiguity, for they show how players balance the desire to win, the "right to win," that is, balancing how m u c h they want to win with how m u c h they think they deserve to win. The major theme r u n n i n g t h r o u g h all these attitudes is the idea that the best people win the most. A n d being the best means appealing to higher loyalties; being generous, kind and seemingly unconcerned with winning.

Luck Beyond attitudes, players attribute luck to all sorts of objects and practices. Perhaps the most c o m m o n lucky (or unlucky) object is the dabber (an inker that is used to m a r k paper bingo sheets). Dabbers come in a variety of colors and luck m a y be attached to the color as well as the dabber itself. O n e player noticed that his friend was using a green dabber instead of a purple one. He asked him about it. His friend said, "I bought a green one last week for St. Patrick's Day. I thought it would be lucky." "Did you win?", asked the player. "Sure did. I won on the very first early game." Sometimes certain colors are lucky for certain games. I couldn't help but notice one player sitting a few seats down from me. She had four dabbers in different colors in a plastic bag in front of her. Periodically, she would change colors. I thought at first that she changed to a new dabber because the other was empty, but I saw that all four dabbers were relatively new and full of ink. W h e n players do realize that their lucky dabbers are r u n n i n g low, they m a y try and "conserve" the luck as m u c h as possible, as in the following example. I noticed that the player sitting next to me was using two different dabbers to m a r k his cards. I asked h i m what he was doing. He said, "This is m y lucky one and I use it only for the free spots now. Instead of using it all at once, I just do the free spots. It's getting low on ink."

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S o m e t i m e s the luck r u n s out before the ink does. T h e p l a y e r in the p r e v i o u s e x a m p l e explains, They lose their thing, you know, the colors just fade away . . . the colors just lose their appeal to me. I need something new, a different color to bring me luck. I n an a t t e m p t to b r i n g b a c k a failing d a b b e r , a p l a y e r m a y loan it to a friend for a short while. As with attitudes, luck c a n b e cultivated b y h e l p i n g a friend. L u c k is a r e w a r d for charity. I n addition to d a b b e r s , players m a y attribute luck to other objects a n d h a p p e n i n g s . T a b l e s a n d chairs inside the b i n g o p a r l o r c o m e to h a v e certain m e a n i n g attached to t h e m . M a n y players prefer the front b e c a u s e of b e t t e r acoustics a n d the ability to see the n u m b e r s p r i n t e d on the balls. O t h e r players c o m e to p r e f e r these a n d o t h e r seats for reasons related to w i n n i n g or losing. On my way home from school I stopped at a local grocery store and recognized one of the cashiers as a bingo player. We started talking and he mentioned that he was going to be at bingo this week and was going to sit in his lucky seat. I asked him why it was lucky and he replied, "I've won there three times!" M a n y regulars can be seen sitting in the s a m e seats w e e k after week. A few, h o w e v e r , are k n o w n for their constant m o v e m e n t . I ' v e b e e n w a t c h i n g this one p a r t i c u l a r p l a y e r for s o m e t i m e now. N e v e r h a v e I seen her sit in the s a m e place twice. I n fact, tonight she m o v e d a n u m b e r of times. She sat with h e r friend for early bingo, t h e n m o v e d to a n o t h e r table for the first h a l f of r e g u l a r bingo. D u r i n g i n t e r m i s s i o n she w e n t to p l a y b r e a k - e v e n b i n g o with a n o t h e r friend. T h e n it was b a c k to a n o t h e r table for the second h a l f of r e g u l a r bingo. P e r h a p s this p l a y e r is "chasing luck" b y continually switching seats. C h a s i n g luck can be seen in a n o t h e r e x a m p l e . As one p l a y e r explains, I don't believe in lucky seats, but some people do. Some people look for lucky tables. They look around and see who's winning, which table has a lot of winners. Then the next week they try and sit with those players~.They figure the luck will rub off on them. L u c k can be a t t r i b u t e d to j u s t a b o u t a n y t h i n g a p l a y e r notices d u r i n g a win. I ' v e h e a r d players refer to callers, g a m e s , coins, a n d e v e n

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p i e c e s o f c l o t h i n g , s u c h as s h i r t s a n d s w e a t e r s , b e i n g l u c k y . I n a l m o s t all i n s t a n c e s p l a y e r s h o l d t h e s e t h i n g s to b e l u c k y b e c a u s e t h e y w e r e s o m e h o w a s s o c i a t e d w i t h w i n n i n g . O n e p l a y e r in p a r t i c u l a r h a s a l o n g list o f l u c k y a n d u n l u c k y p r a c t i c e s a n d e x p l a i n s h o w t h e s e c a m e to b e lucky and unlucky. (Are there things which you do that you think better your chances of winning?) Yes. Positive thought waves. Buying my fountain drinks at certain stores. I find that when I buy my drinks at Fast Fare I don't win. Well, I can't say that. No, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. Last Friday I went there and got a drink and asked, "Where are the caps?" There were no caps. The guy said that there weren't any, so I left and went to Wendy's where there were drinks with caps. (Did you get the caps because you had to drive with the drink?) Yeah that, but one time I did get one without a cap. I went there before and they were out of caps, then I went out again and they were still out of caps. So I got one without a cap and I lost. I try to avoid things like that. I think a lot of things affect it, like when you get there and who you get behind. (Could you explain?) I have a pattern that I follow when coming into the hall. I always take my time coming in. I walk real slow and let people get in front of me. I won when I let a black person in front of me. I shouldn't have done it a few weeks ago, though. That person won the door prize. A few w e e k s l a t e r I a s k e d t h i s p l a y e r , I've noticed that you lost a couple of times to the person in front of you. Do you still think that getting behind a black person helps you win?) No. I haven't been winning when I get behind, so now I get in front and I win! T h e s e p l a y e r s ' a c c o u n t s o f l u c k s u g g e s t t h a t a s s i g n i n g l u c k to a n o b j e c t o r p r a c t i c e is a n o n g o i n g p r o c e s s . " T h i n g s " a r e c o n t i n u a l l y evaluated for their "effectiveness." Bingo players, like poker players (see H a y a n o , 1978) see l u c k as a f i n i t e e n t i t y a n d w h e n t h e l u c k r u n s o u t o f a n o b j e c t , it is t i m e for a c h a n g e . L o s i n g is a p r i m e i n d i c a t i o n t h a t t h e l u c k r a n d r y a n d it is n o s u r p r i s e t h a t c h a n g e s i n s t r a t e g i e s a r e introduced during periods of losing. The following example illustrates, I noticed that the player sitting next to me had a new dabber this week. Wondering what happened to his usual lucky dabber I asked, "Is that your lucky dabber?" He replied, "No, my lucky dabber isn't lucky anymore. This is the one that I won on last. This is now my lucky dabber." I f t h e l o s i n g s t r e a k is l o n g e n o u g h ,

a m o r e d r a s t i c c h a n g e is

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needed. Some players c h a n g e bingo parlors and some stop going to b i n g o for a while.

Discussion: Superstition as a Neutralization Technique It is often a m a z i n g to see h o w m u c h trouble bingo players go t h r o u g h to try to win. T h e y are a n y t h i n g b u t passive. I n fact, an outsider m i g h t very well view their activities as work, skillful w o r k at that. After all, it does take a certain a m o u n t of h a n d - e y e c o o r d i n a t i o n a n d mental f u n c t i o n i n g to be able to keep u p with ten or twelve sets of cards. A n d one has to have a fair a m o u n t of m e m o r y to be able to keep track of all the things that are related to w i n n i n g a n d losing, such as f o u n t a i n drinks without caps, lucky colors, lucky n u m b e r s a n d hunches. A n d , while some of the conclusions players c o m e to a b o u t what influences w i n n i n g m a y seem far-fetched to outsiders, they make perfect sense to players. Besides, no one else has come u p with a n y better ways to influence fate. W h a t is ironic, however, is that few players see (or at least admit) their activities to be work or feel that b i n g o is a skillful game. C o n s i d e r the following responses to the question, "Do y o u think b i n g o is a skillful game?" No, it's not. I don't think it takes skill to play . . . It's just like driving a car. Only when you are able to read the cards fast enough, that's the only skill I see. Once you have learned what the games are then it takes a minimal amount. You have a learning period . . . . Once you learn what you are doing, and it doesn't take much time to learn . . . you get to a point of automatically being able to play. Skillful? Well, not really. It doesn't require any knowledge or anything. All you do is stamp the numbers. At first, when you first start playing what is skill is that you have to learn what works and what doesn't work, like what the diagonals are and what the four corners are. (So you have to learn the rules?) Yeah, the games. Once you learn 'em then I wouldn't call it skillful. F r o m these statements it seems that players s o m e h o w exclude the use of strategies w h e n thinking a b o u t what they do w h e n they play bingo. W h e n asked if b i n g o was a skillful game, players focused on the "standard" or "regular" activities of the game, such as s t a m p i n g n u m -

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bers and recognizing patterns. Superstitious strategies were not mentioned. Curiously, the use of these strategies does not constitute cheating in the majority of players' minds. As one player commented on another's use of a lucky object, "It's okay if it helps you win." These strategies are not seen as skillful attempts to influence fate, rather they are ways to neutralize the problematic aspects of bingo. Their excuses and justifications help players accept their past bingo playing behavior and disclaimers pave the way for future play. Using strategies to win however, implies skill and thus, having some degree of control over the outcome of the game. But these strategies contradict the very nature of chance games such as bingo, where winning is random. Yet, players of chance games, whether it be lottery, roulette or bingo, come to believe that they have some degree of control over whether or not they win. Oldman (1974) found that roulette players freely admit to the use of strategies and redefine the game as one requiring skill. Bingo players, as I have shown, admit to using strategies but continue to see bingo as a game of chance. The key to the difference between the definitions of bingo and roulette lies in the structural "constraints" of each game and the moral ambiguity surrounding each activity. Structurally, bingo gives players little opportunity to make decisions. In roulette, players continually make decisions concerning bets, which numbers, how much, when to stop, etc.; in bingo, however, players are less free. T h e y must buy cards at certain times and use those cards the entire night. In some parlors, players are not allowed to pick their own cards, nor are they allowed to change cards once they have purchased them. Unlike roulette players, bingo players consider only the standard activities of a game when assessing its level of skill, then it is easy to see why bingo players see bingo as a game of chance. Morally, bingo and roulette differ. Bingo players are faced with contradictions between good and evil. With Oldman's (1974) roulette players, the ambiguity was less pronounced, for the game was not restricted to "charity only" under English gambling laws. The problem for roulette players was not so much a conflict between good and evil, but rather "handling" the winning and losing of large sums of money. As O l d m a n suggests, defining roulette as a game of skill makes players at least partially responsible for their actions and the gaining and losing of money. Bingo players seem less concerned with seeing themselves as

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skillful and, in fact, avoid defining their actions as skillful. For players who must constantly battle with the conflicts between playing for charity and playing to win, seeing bingo as a skillful game may tip the definition of bingo into the realm of self-interest. Skill implies having control over the outcome, and that, in turn, implies playing to win. Seeing bingo as a game of chance, however, keeps bingo in the realm of charity, for players have no control over winning. They can make what Scott and Lyman (1968) call excuses by denying responsibility for winning and appealing to winning "accidentally." They can make what Hewitt and Stokes (1975) call disclaimers by hedging, downplaying the skillful aspects of bingo and allowing themselves to admit to a minimal commitment to playing to win. Their admission fee is their donation to charity, winning is an added bonus, a reward for good behavior. For players who are concerned with the morality of bingo, stressing the chance element is the safest way to go.

REFERENCES Abt, V., Smith, J., & Christiansen, E. (1985). The business of risk. Lawrence: Kansas University Press. Callois, R. (1961). Man, play and games. New York: Schocken. Davis, M.P. & LaFleur, T. (1988, July 15). U.S. and Canadian Gaming at a Glance. Gaming and Wagering Business, (pp. 22-23). Hayano, D. (1978). Strategies for the management of luck and action in an urban poker parlor. Urban Life, 7, 475-488. Henslin, J. (1967). Craps and magic. American Journal of Sociology, 73, 316-330. Hewitt, J.P. & Stokes, R. (1975). Disclaimers. American Sociological Review, 40, 1-11. Hoover, D. (1979, April 21). Bingo kindles heat in general assembly. The News and Observer. Raleigh, N.C. "x. KaUick, M., Suits, D., Dielman, T., and Hybels, J. (1976). A survey of American gambling attitudes and behavior. In Commission on the Review of National Policy Toward Gambling. Gambling in America: Appendix. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. King, K.M. (1985). Gambling for God." Charity and self-interest in the bingo parlor, Unpublished Dissertation, The University of Noith Carolina at Chapel Hill. King, K.M. (1987). Normative contingencies: Charity and moderation. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 8, 215-237. Lasch, C. (1979). The culture of narcissism: American life in an age of diminishing expectations. New York: Warner Books. Mills, C.W. (1940). Situated actions and vocabularies of motive. American Sociological Review, 22, 667-669. Oldman, D. (1974). Chance and skill : A study of roulette. Sociology, 8, 407-426. Reinhold, R. (1985, December 13). Bingo issue pits Creek Indians against Oklahoma. The New York Times. Rumbolz, M. (1988). Indian gambling. In W.R. Eadington (ed.) Gambling research: Proceedings of "the seventh international conference on gambling and risk taking. Bureau of Business and Economic Research: University of Nevada, Reno.

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Scott, M. & Lyman, S. (1968). Accounts. American Sociological Review, 33, 46-62. Sullivan, E. (1984, April 15). High stakes being wagered on Indians' bingo. The Plain Dealer. Sykes, G. & Matza, D. (1957). Techniques of neutralization. American Sociological Review, 22, 667-669. Winkelman, M. (1982). Magic: A theoretical reassessment. Current Anthropology, 23, 37-44.