Gumersinda, a middle-aged woman and resident of Valterra, had a plan and therefore did not hesitate for a second, on March 11, to call the police when "all hell broke loose." "I will not allow anyone to scam me in my own face," Gumersinda explains indignantly, "and that's why I stood up and exposed the deception," she anticipates.
With premeditation
That night she was going to set a trap for some of the regulars at the neighborhood club, like her, to prove that something in the operation of the game was not correct. "One lady won six bingos in a row one day, and that much luck is not normal," she argues. Therefore, that night she went to the venue with a "special" card. "My friend lent me the card that one of the organizers had given her with a writing on the back predicting good luck," Gumersinda explains. It was a winning card.
That night, as if by magic, each and every one of the numbers on her card came out consecutively from the bag they use as an occasional raffle drum. And Gumersinda called out "bingo," to her surprise, in unison with another of the attendees. "That card is not yours," Gumersinda says that one of those present shouted at her emphatically. "That's when I realized that it wasn't normal," she comments.
The trick
"The person in charge of drawing the balls in the raffle recognizes the number of each one by touch and has a card with loose numbers and moves them with her own hands as it suits her," Gumersinda says, showing "the trap" between her hands. "That was a great test for me before the police," she emphasizes triumphantly after unmasking the alleged scam. For her, the game is over there: "I'm not going back there, I feel scammed and outraged by the amount of lies they tell," she laments angrily.
Something more than a game
The event would not be more than the typical common quarrel between neighbors if it were not because, according to the report of the Local Police, in one of their visits to the place, "more than one hundred people" were counted. Something that Gumersinda also corroborates: "Sometimes good bingos are played. When there are many people, a hand can be 170 euros," she says, although she adds that the game is usually around 80 or 90 euros and that about 6 or 7 hands are played each night. Every day the club is open until half past twelve or one in the morning according to the president. Do the math. "On a good night, prizes totaling 600 euros can be called out," says the alleged aggrieved party.
The complaints
There have been several calls and complaints received by the Local Police of Arrecife in recent months. Most of them related to the nuisance caused by the noises inside the club, although some, including those of Gumersinda, denounced "that they had been deceived with the money from the prizes in addition to the cheating in the aforementioned game," according to police reports. Likewise, the Local Police, which has no jurisdiction on the matter, noted in the writings of its interventions that "the person in charge of the premises at that time and who was carrying out the bingo game did not have any type of license or authorization to carry out the activity", adding that "it infringes Decree 85/2002 of July which says: games that constitute modalities of the game of bingo are prohibited... except those constituting a social or family nature provided that they are not subject to lucrative exploitation for the players or by persons or entities outside them".
For that reason and for being warned previously on repeated occasions, the security agents and the game inspectors carried out a "raid" on the premises last Thursday, April 3, and confiscated the raffle cards from the idle neighbors of the neighborhood, while informing of the illegality, reporting the incident. On the other hand, the report of the deputy chief commissioner mentions "the danger in terms of security measures," since according to what he writes "the capacity of the premises was clearly exceeded, with the danger that this entails if any incident were to occur." According to the agent, the club lacks "fire protection measures and an emergency exit door."
The other side of the coin
The president of the Santa Coloma football club who is in charge of the premises has another view of what happened. According to him, at night between those walls "the five old women of 70 and 80 years old who go there to pass the time play four pennies" and considers that the complaints "are nonsense from a lady that we don't want to go there because she is not a member of the club." Regarding the alleged irregularities in the money of the prizes and the game, the president snorts and downplays the amounts played. "But what cheating is going to be done there if that is worth ten cents a card and no more than 35 people participate each night," he argues.
Even so, he acknowledges that his lawyer handles those issues who "fixed things for me the other time." In 2004 the former president was denounced by a neighbor and, according to the current one, after the trial last October, the judge's ruling gave them the reason. "In the ruling, the judge says that we can play there quietly. That's why we started playing five months ago," he alleges. In Arrecife there are another five or six places like this where people go to play every day according to the testimony of Gumersinda and the president of the club, in which, according to the writings, the Police will carry out a subsequent follow-up.
Meeting places for the elderly or illegal gambling venues are the meeting space for many neighbors of the city, according to Gumersinda "because we have nowhere to go to have fun". Many continue to go to the venue every night "because the price of the card is cheaper and the prizes are higher than in the legal bingo," assures Gumersinda who does not tire of making it public.
