The following list provides 15 examples of when bingo heists don’t quite go to plan…

When you think of major gambling heists, most people will imagine the action scenes from Ocean 11 with criminals striking big Vegas style casinos. However there has been a rising trend in career criminals planning heists that target bingo halls.

Criminals will often focus on striking at bingo halls simply because they’re easy to gain access to and are not protected as strongly as a big casino would be.

1. Don’t Rob a Biker’s Bingo Game

Blade wielding masked criminals picked out the wrong bingo hall to steal from. The robbers didn’t notice that a fifty strong biker gang from Southern Cross Cruiser Club were taking pleasure in a beer or two in the nearby bar.

When the biker gang saw the two men trying to rob the bingo winnings, all 50 stormed over towards them.

Upon witnessing the bikers drawing near, the robbers fled. One ran past people playing poker machines at the back of the club and then found himself blocked by a closed glass door. The robber charged through the glass and leapt five meters over the balcony before running across a bowling green. The other criminal left the building using an exit at the rear of the bar, but the biker club president – Jester went to the back of the club and waited for the robber to leave the building. When the robber appeared they hogtied him and waited for the police to arrive.

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2. Bingo Cleaner Foils Robbery

In this bingo robbery attempt, Craig Stephenson took a young women hostage and put a 8inch knife to her neck. Craig then dragged the screaming girl around the bingo hall looking for cash. Eventually, Craig entered the main hall and ran into cleaner Lee Marrison. The knife armed intruder told Lee to lie on the floor but instead he bravely stood up to him and chased him outside.

Lee Marrison told reporters:

“I was cleaning the tables in the hall and I heard a noise and turned around and saw him with his hand around her neck and a knife in his other hand. “The poor girl was shouting ‘I don’t want to die’.”

Later on Craig was arrested and sentenced to four years in jail

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3. Bingo Thieves Steal Monopoly Money

A pair of armed robbers held up a church game of bingo and quickly took the bag of money that was handed to them. Thankfully this bag only contained a lead pipe and some Monopoly money. According to reports, the organizers had already been the victim of crime so decided to have the fake money bag ready in case it happened again.

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4. Don’t Mess With Bingo Players

In another case of bingo players fighting back, a robber ended up being shot when he tried to rob a bingo parlor in Florida. The cocky criminal chose to fire his pistol into the ceiling to prove he was for real. One of the players who was fearful for his life chose at this point to pull his own pistol and swiftly shot the robber dead. The player was not charged as he had a concealed weapons permit and Florida has a law (Stand Your Ground Law) that allows residents to use deadly force to protect themselves against intruders.

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5. Bingo Players Use Boards and Chairs to Prevent Robbery

In Iowa, bingo players used their boards and chairs to pummel an armed robber as he fought with an off duty policeman. The robber put a gun to the head of the Bingo cash clerk and told him to give him the money or he would kill him. Luckily an off duty policeman came to the cash clerks aid and then bingo players joined in throwing their bingo cards, chairs and even their bingo dabbers.

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6. Ex-Police Trickster Beaten By CCTV

In this strange case an ex policeman used his old job to trick a bingo manager into letting him into the room where they kept the money. Matthew Brakewell told staff that he was working undercover to catch a criminal gang that was targeting bingo halls in the area. Once he was alone, Mr Brakewell then pocketed $4,000 and was never seen again by the bingo staff. Sadly for him, the CCTV image of his face was passed to other bingo halls and he was later arrested.

When arrested he denied that he planned to steal the cash but that he was just testing the bingo hall’s security systems as research for setting up his own security firm. The judge didn’t buy his story and he was given a jail sentence.

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7. Electronic Bingo Cheating Leads To Suicide

This heist in Vegas involved Reno software engineer who allegedly rigged electronic bingo machines in Las Vegas to allow himself to play many more cards than he had paid for.

Keeton had worked at the Corporation corporation who manufacture 2 types of digital bingo card “minders” which keep an eye on the numbers called to ensure that the gambler can take advantage of using more than one bingo card in one call. Players that make use of the digital minders do not get actual paper bingo cards but play off a computer produced card which is kept up to date through a mainframe computer system.

Keeton was caught at a local casino when they found his bingo playing to be erratic. Sadly when Keeton found out that his secret was out he subsequently hung himself.

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8. Slow Gunmen Wastes Time Counting the Money

A young gunmen robbed a bingo hall in Pittsburgh and was told by the owner that the money was in the backroom. Rather than just taking the money and running, the foolish thief spent so long in the backroom that another bingo patron rang the police and they swiftly arrested him.

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9. Bingo Thief Picks On the Wrong Lady

Louise Burt, 73, had just picked up her bingo winnings when a thief snatched her handbag. However this seventy three year old was no walk over and chased the robber into a housing project. Local policemen saw the old lady chasing the thief and managed to catch up with him on a two-story rooftop. The foolish criminal then decided to jump off and was found by police officers cowering under a car with both ankles broken.

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10. Church Bingo Players Don’t Let Heist Get in the Way of a Game

A suspect enters a bingo hall and the players let him take the $500 pot but defiantly they play on. These bingo players were not going to let some punk stop them from having fun!

The victims of crime were still playing when Broward Sheriff’s Office detectives who were investigating the crime left the scene many hours later!

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11. When Bingo Heists Go Wrong

When three shotgun armed robbers entered a bingo hall in Culver City, California only two managed to escape.  A security guard saw the robbers entering the bingo hall and shot one dead before the criminals had a chance to return fire.

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12. Bingo Hero is Run Over

A heroic off-duty police officer tried to stop a bingo thief but was then hit by a car driven by the victim’s brother. In this bizarre case of mistaken identity, the brother of the 65 year old victim thought the police office was the villain. Sadly in all the commotion, the real bingo villains managed to escape.

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13. Bingo Guard Grabs the Barrel of a Shotgun

Manchester, UK seems to be the home of Bingo have-a-go heroes.  A shotgun armed gunman entered a bingo hall in  Belle Vue but was shocked when the security guard grabbed the barrel of the gun forcing a shot to be discharged in the ceiling.

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14. Robber Tells Police Informant His Plans

Stephen John Fundak planned to raid a church game of bingo by bursting in during mass and telling the priests to give him the bingo game proceeds. Luckily for the players at the church, Stephen had told his plans to an undercover police informant and even asked for help with obtaining weapons. Just moments before the planned robbery, detectives arrested the would-be thief.

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15. Smoking Ban Stops Robbery

In Manchester – UK a thief armed with a samurai sword was spotted by smokers who were forced to smoke outside after the smoking ban was introduced. The smoking bingo patrons had time to alert staff about the samurai wielding maniac and staff managed to wrestle him to the floor before he could cause any damage.

After the man was arrested the defiant bingo players then got on with playing the 7pm game.

Before the ban, bingo customers smoked inside the building and it’s likely the samurai sword youth would have made it inside the building unseen.

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Tag(s): Bingo News, Uncategorized