Hundreds of bingo gamers gathered last week Monday night (November 19) at the Potawatomi Hotel & Casino bingo hall in Milwaukee, USA, where each one is allowed to play up to 180 electronic cards at a time, so it is possible for an outcome of multiple winners in one session.
In one particular and incredible round, the bingo jackpot prize was split between a record 290 players!
The bingo game caller astoundingly called out 44 balls without drawing any ball coming from the "G" column, which put most of the players in the room on the verge of winning. Finally, "G-53" was caught, resulting in a massive shouting chorus of "BINGO" heard all over the hall.
Bingo staff counted and confirmed a total of 290 valid winning cards. According to a professor of math sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee named Jay Beder, the odds of this incident occurring are roughly 1 in 1.5 million.
In normal circumstances, the game's jackpot prize money of $500 would be shared amongst all winning players; however, this odd occurrence would only give out $1.72 for each winner. Even if the smallest bingo buy-in at the casino is $5, the prize would still end up as a net-loss for each player.
Fortunately, the generous casino opted to award each winner the minimum $25, thus the total payout was $7,250 for the 290 winners, or about 14.5 times the original $500 jackpot.
Source:
https://www.wisn.com/article/bingo-record-set-at-potawatomi-for-number-of-winners-in-single-game/25244977
