One day, David Edwards, who enjoyed online casino gaming and Bingo, placed an $8 bet and came out with $73.7 million in his hands. And this all occurred at a regular bingo night at a church!!
Too many evangelical Christians, Catholics included, bingo is their eight sacrament. However, the Catholic Church teaches that gambling is against the Lord because the wealth accumulated is not used on the poor.
There are thousands of weekly, monthly and daily bingo games, raffles and financed casino evenings in church and synagogue’s halls. Even though the main goal behind these evenings are socializing with friends and meeting new people, there is still the underlying principle of gambling. People have become so fanatic about church bingo evenings that they have turned to taking pictures of Cayetano in order to bring them luck when they play in church halls.
St. Cayetona was a supporter of bread, labor and the unemployed. He was a priest that discovered the Bank of Naples and if people would bet their rosary or holy candles against him, but he always won. Coincidence?
Churches using Bingo as a Revenue Source
Churches started using bingo as a source of revenue to cover their service costs. According to reports about real money casinos in the UK vs Bingo, about $75,000 is accumulated from bingo games. Some churches are flourishing from bingo, whilst others deny their popularity. The first form of fund-raising, using bingo was in the beginning of the bingo history. A priest from Pennsylvania approached the owner of bingo, Ed Lowe asking him if he could use bingo as a form to raise funds for his church. So the intentions of churches were good and many churches are still very humble about bingo nights. They use all the funds for services they provide to the community. Whilst others do pocket a percentage of money for personal reasons, but there are very little cases like that.
The chairman of the archdiocese’s Inter-Parish Financing Commission, Dennis Keane has announced that very few churches have slashed their bingo agendas. In the last five years, bingo sales have dropped to 25% from $3.2 million to $2.2 million mainly said to be because of the decrease in volunteers that run the bingo evenings.
Strangely, churches are meant to be against any form of betting or gambling, but the advantages that bingo evenings provide to churches do help out with costs that arise.