With daubers poised in mid-air and eyes on the television screen, seven ladies from the Cascade Mobile Home Park and a friend waited for their luck to change.

And it did.

Four games into Sunday’s bingo at the Bend Senior Center, the most the women had won was $3.50. They were drowning their loses in a bag of miniature chocolate bars in the center of the table.

”If you win you get a chocolate. If you lose, you get two,” Rita Hart said.

The women watched as balls popped up on the two television monitors at each side of the large recreation room. They marked off their cards with brightly colored daubers before caller Jim Michaelis had a chance to read off the numbers.

”You just pray a lot,” Gloria Voiles said.

”Or curse a lot,” Sue Byrd said.

Byrd set off the winning streak for the group when she had the first card whose numbers lined up across the top row.

Byrd’s $10 win was followed by a win from Hart, who sat across the table and beamed after raking in $20 and winning on bingo’s layered cake pattern.

Next to Hart sat Voiles. The 83-year-old woman played 12 different cards at the same time, scrolling her dauber up and down each row every time a number was pulled.

Voiles won big – $40 – when she had the first card whose numbers formed one of the harder to follow diamond shaped patterns.

The women – all seniors -come to Sunday afternoon bingo to socialize, keep their minds sharp and win a little bit of money, or at least break even.

”It’s nice to get out and meet other people,” Voiles said. ”And, it’s good for your mind.”

Every second and fourth Sunday afternoon, the United Senior Citizens of Bend hosts bingo. Virginia Reddick, vice president of the organization, said Sunday afternoon bingo is a way to raise money and to keep seniors busy.

”Sunday afternoon is a lonely time for most seniors,” Reddick said.

Although the game is open to anyone older than 18, the vast majority of the more than 30 bingo players – and volunteers – at the senior center Sunday afternoon had graying or white hair.

But age didn’t always correlate to years of bingo experience.

Sunday was 81-year-old Ella Beatty’s first time to play bingo at the senior center. With one number left in the small-diamond pattern, she poked the space and smiled with anticipation.

A minute later as the women saw the number pop up on the television screen, Beatty was being tapped on the arm and congratulated even before she had the chance to call out bingo.

”I’m hooked now,” she said.

The fourth in a row to win among the group of Cascade Mobile Home Park ladies, Beatty took home $10.

Next to the group of women, sat Gordon and Eleanor Parker, well-versed in the game of bingo.

They had glue, and scotch tape for back up, to make sure their sets of cards would stay together and not move when they had to start marking numbers fast.

Eleanor Parker has been known to play 30 different cards at once, but on Sunday she settled for 16.

”I don’t like to work that hard,” she said. The couple brought three different colors of daubers, pens to mark the different patterns needed in each game to win bingo, and grapes and water to keep them going.

The two have been playing bingo for about 15 years.

”She’s a bingo-holic,” Gordon Parker joked about his wife. The couple play two or three times a week at different venues in Bend.

The hobby paid off on Sunday as both won games.

Neither Reddick nor LaDean Eicker, who manages the program, had any experience in running bingo games when they started it up at the senior center a year and half ago. But they had help from others in the community and did a lot of reading in the state book that sanctions the game.

Neither one plays on Sundays, instead they collect money as people come through the door and do the paperwork, which is audited by the state.

The organization’s state bingo license is propped against the wall beside them.

”We make sure we do everything right,” Reddick said. ”The rules are very strict.”

Most everyone agreed that they would like to see more people come to Sunday afternoon bingo. As more people come and play, the pot of money grows and the winnings are larger.

Anyone older than 18 can pay the $15 it costs to play for the afternoon. For more information, call the Bend Senior Center at 388-1133.

Byrd warned that the game can be addictive.

”I had surgery at the end of December and was playing before I got the stitches out,” she said.