MONEY spills forth from a £500 top prize fruit machine ... has someone hit the jackpot? No, says the woman scooping up her booty: "just £300." Just £300? What did she spend to win it: a fiver, tenner? "£150. I should have stopped at £100 because I'd won £150 but played on."
A risk too rich for my blood, or earnings. Fortunately, at the vast Mecca bingo complex, off Talbot Road, Blackpool, thrills come tamer.
Bingo! But it's a far from full house for the devotees of the afternoon game, the Six of the Best brigade who
play six games on the silver card, six on the gold, and something called The National which doesn't involve my occasional passion for the gee-gees.
I'm here because the taxman is clobbering bingo, one of the UK's most popular leisure pursuits with more than 8.5 million annual players.
A double whammy of gross profits tax and VAT, could mean bingo's number's up .. well, after you throw in the smoking ban and other restrictions.
Senior executives of the biggest chains in Britain, along with the Bingo Association, are urging the Government to scrap VAT on clubs.
They're out to beat the Chancellor, Alistair Darling at his own game, reminding him that "revenue to HM Treasury has already been affected by the current downturn."
They calculate that each club loss adds up to £700,000 in lost revenue.
Local MPs Joan Humble and Ben Wallace have signed early day motions calling for a reform of bingo taxation.
Blackpool's a working class bastion of bingo and smoking ... those who banked on a ciggie helping them concentrate have been hit hard.
The fruit machines which help underpin the empire have also been targeted – with prize values curbed by the same gaming laws which threw up the dream of a supercasino.
Mecca manager Mike Travis has worked in bingo for around 20 years and still plays for pleasure at the Orion, Cleveleys, his home club.
Bingo attracts people of all ages and has enjoyed a 15 per cent rise in younger players. Nearly half of all players are under 45, though there's little sign of them in Blackpool on the afternoon I attend, early week. It's no wonder – they'll be working.
Mike runs a 2,000 seater stadium , the Opera House of bingo halls.
On a good night it gets 1,500 through, but even on a bleak midwinter afternoon, several hundred are taking time out here.
Locally, bingo halls have come and gone, including on the Golden Mile, but some favourites endure, names indicating cinematic beginnings: Apollo, Orion, Empire and more.
"Bingo not only helped save the Grand Theatre but has kept many beloved cinema buildings open," adds Mike. "It's social history."
The Mecca's the biggest of the bunch, not just in Blackpool, but in the North West.
