One of the perks of the job back in those days was getting to engage in a touch of industrial espionage. Yes, you read that right, espionage. Like sneaks in the night (mixing my similes there,) we would often have to channel our inner James Bond, walk in to enemy territory and steal as much information as we could. It was life or death, high stakes, high octane bingo…
But let me take a step back first, and tell you the background to our sneaky missions to other bingo clubs in our fair city. Every couple of months, the manager at the Gaiety would have a week or two where he wanted to compare our club with the others locally. I’m not sure if this was standard Top Rank policy, or just something he wanted to do himself, but essentially we would be given the opportunity to go play at one of our competitors for free, and if we were lucky enough to win, we got to keep the winnings as well.
As you can imagine, there was no lack of volunteers to go have a free paid-for game, but we had to work it around our nights off and normal rotas. Only one person per night was allowed to go, as that was all the manager wanted to cover money-wise, so there was the odd bit of negotiation involved as we decided who would go and when.
Back then (1989-92ish) our main opposition in Cardiff was the Castle Bingo in Canton, and the Gala Bingo on St Mary Street in the town centre. Splott was also a competitor, but as our sister club I don’t think we ever went to spy on them. I went on several of these missions during my time working there, a couple to the Canton Castle, and once to the Gala Bingo. We were sent with a plan of what information to gather, and to keep an eye out for anything that may be of interest or use to our club.
On arrival at our target club, we would be there for a full session and furtively head off to a nice convenient corner where we could spy on the proceedings. I did evening sessions generally, and took my mum to one so we could essentially split the cost of the books as I would get mine reimbursed for the price of tickets, and we could split the winnings if we had any. Let’s not mention it was also a handy way to get a lift, but there you are, Cardiff buses could be a right pain in the behind.
Our goal was to write down all the ticket prices, the opening and closing ticket numbers on the sessions and the prize money for every line and house. From that, the manager could extrapolate info about the cut the competitors were taking, the popularity of the night, the value for money and all sorts of interesting stuff. The easiest way to gather the information was to keep a tally on the pages of the books we were playing in. We couldn’t discard the books as they were our evidence that we had bought tickets and means to get the money repaid.
You had to try and make it look all natural and above board, because let’s not forget, bingo staff tend to wander around the aisles as you play, and if you were more interested in taking notes about things like prize money splits and ticket numbers, it may have looked a bit suspicious. We also had to work fast, as the breaks between games and shouts were relentless and quick. It was best not to try write it all down in bingo marker, as it stood out like a sore thumb and often bled together making the numbers illegible. A biro alongside our game marking pens was essential. It always added an extra element of danger and anxiety to the nights we were there taking notes.
As well as the games and money, we had to note other things, menu items and their costs, bar prices, entrance prices and promotions. To be fair, most clubs were very similar in their offerings, so any edge that could be gathered could help our club tailor our prices accordingly. Now, were we alone in doing this? I doubt it very much, it would make sense that the competition would be keeping an eye us as well.
So, how did I fare over my clandestine bingo games? Not great, the only time I remember winning was the night my mum came with me to the Canton Castle, and she had a shout on a late session house which we split between us. It wasn’t much, but was a nice little bonus given it was a free night out (other than drinks and food). As for the Gala, the only thing of note I remember reporting back to the manager at the Gaiety was that the manager there had announced the death of one of their regulars at the start of the main session, and said a few words. It was particularly striking as at our club there was a strict rule to not announce anything like that. It would have killed the mood was my guess, plus with the way gossip spread among the members I would imagine they would all know well before we took the stage!
For me at the time it was an cheap way to see the culture in other halls. The Gala in St Mary Street was an old style hall like ours, balcony seating (although it was closed the night I went) and in a prime location. It wasn’t that busy the times I went, and didn’t last much longer where it was, shutting down and being converted in to a bar. The Canton Castle was like a modern marvel, allegedly the UK’s first purpose built hall. It was nice to see the different kind of layout, and clean new lines and bright lighting of the club. To be honest it felt like it lacked the atmosphere of our club, but what do you know, it was ultimately the winner and last club standing of the ones we surveyed. Maybe their spies were a bit more dashing and helped tip the balance in their favour…
