Bunco’s Hands Are Clean Now

The evening started off calmly enough. Eleven women gathered in the kitchen of Melanie Ballard’s La Canada Flintridge home, discussing their children’s schools, church, lipstick colors, while nibbling on Chinese takeout and homemade cookies. But within moments of sitting down, Ballard, 49, a music teacher and mother of six, leaped to her feet, jumped up and down like a high school cheerleader and squealed, “Bunco, bunco, bunco!”

Such is the way of bunco, a game of chance with roots in the California Gold Rush, Prohibition and “bunco squads.” The game, which seems to have successfully shaken its shady past, is enjoying a resurgence, especially among suburban moms for whom it provides a much-needed night off.

There are “thousands and thousands of women playing in Southern California alone,” said Leslie Crouch, who operates the World Bunco Assn. (www.world bunco.com) out of her Carlsbad home, and several hundred thousand in the U.S. “And it’s just growing.” In 1996, when Crouch started the association, most bunco activity was concentrated in Arizona, Texas and California. “Now it’s very popular on the East Coast as well,” she said.

“We have people contacting us from all over the country as well as outside the country,” offered Crouch. “A lot of military wives play bunco. There are even several celebrities who play,” she added, singling out actress Andie MacDowell.

“It’s not really about the game,” said Charlotte Saydah, 45, a member of the 2-year-old La Canada Flintridge group. “It’s about an excuse to get together. It’s easy enough that you can play and talk at the same time and have a glass of wine. You don’t have to concentrate real hard.”

Indeed, just around the corner in the dining room, at the winner’s table, there was an animated discussion about the merits of a Target store knockoff charm bracelet versus the real thing, followed by a “Sex and the City” debate (“That’s a bad show.” “No, that’s a funny show”) all while the dice were rolling. When one team trounced the other, however, the women resorted to making adolescent L and W hand gestures (for “loser” and “winner”) at one another.

It’s a long way from the game’s beginnings. Bunco, sometimes spelled “bunko,” dates to the mid-1800s. During the Gold Rush, the story goes, a crooked gambler made his way through San Francisco, introducing the game to many an unlucky opponent. Consequently, the term “bunco” came to mean any kind of swindle. By the turn of the century, the game had gone straight, becoming primarily a female and family diversion. But during Prohibition, it became tainted once again, as gamblers took it up in secret bunco parlors.

The game is generally played with 12 participants, nine dice and one bell, which is used to signal the end of one round and the beginning of the next. Although different bunco groups have their own variations, most follow the same basic rules. There is a winners’ table, a losers’ table and an in-between table. Four players, paired off randomly, sit at each table, and each table has three dice. One player rolls at a time.

The game begins with ones. The object is to roll three ones, which is exactly what Ballard did on her first roll. This is a bunco. Next come twos, threes on up to sixes. Then a new round begins, with winners moving up a table or remaining at the winners’ table, losers moving down or remaining at the losers’ table, and each woman getting a new partner. Some groups play for money, some for prizes. Members of the La Canada Flintridge group, who get together once a month, contribute $20 apiece to the kitty each time they meet.

“Sometimes it does get really crazy,” said Cindy Porcell, 39, during a break in the game. “There’s a mysterious purse we play for--money or a gift. That’s where it gets really wild.” On this night, the mysterious purse was tucked inside a small cardboard Winnie-the-Pooh box that changed hands at least a dozen times over the course of the evening, each time someone got a bunco.

Porcell claimed the purse a couple of times, and each time, the mother of 13-year-old twins, who otherwise seemed the model of propriety, did a spirited dance that had the rest of the group in hysterics. At one point, she put the box under her sweater. Another woman sat on it like a protective hen. Never mind the fact they had no idea what the box contained. It could have been a booby prize. (In fact, it turned out to be a $30 Gap gift card, which Porcell’s sister Patti Maloof won, having rolled the last bunco of the evening.)

Wendy Leggett of Newport Beach plays in two bunco groups, both of which meet once a month. “One of the things that sets bunco apart,” said Leggett, who is in her 40s, “is you can feel competitive about it. But it’s not a game of skill or strategy. It’s pretty mindless. Like some games you get so involved and you really get let down in yourself if you don’t do your best. With bunco, you can’t get upset. There are no worries about how you’re performing. It takes that whole element away. It becomes more of a social situation.”

Still, Leggett resists the idea that the time spent playing is mindless. “I don’t like the idea of bunco being chatty, frivolous, silly women. I look at it as learning about each other. There’s a lot of wisdom from the grandmas, or someone like me who’s had their kids in school. There’s a lot of energy I get from someone who’s younger. There’s a lot we can offer each other.”

In 1995, before bunco went bonkers, Crouch and a partner created a boxed version of the game called It’s Bunco Time!!! After her partner left the business, Crouch licensed the game to Talicor Inc., a Chino-based company. Though bunco could easily be played with standard dice, plain paper and any old bell or noisemaker, there’s a market for It’s Bunco Time!!!, which is packaged in a shiny black cube with a handle and generally retails for around $20. The La Canada Flintridge group, for example, uses it.

“When you go into someone’s home and they’re entertaining friends, they like to have something nicer than some scratch paper and a shoebox full of dice,” said Lew Herndon, Talicor’s chairman of the board. Herndon added that sales of the game doubled last year. This year, they expect to sell more than 100,000.

“This is the perfect therapy,” said Ballard, who ended the evening with $40 for having an even number of wins and losses. Debbie Cox, 37, of Pasadena had a slightly more circumspect view of the whole thing. “It’s really sad when you think about it,” said the sales manager for Campbell’s Soup, “that this is the highlight of my day.”