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Be sure that you document in your Resident Council mins. why you have bingo 3 or more times a week. This way when state comes in you are covered. -- What I mean is that when I tried to cut back on bingo @ at facility (that had it often) the residents get very upset. This was voiced very loudly to me. When state came in they wanted to know why so much bingo etc. I showed them the Resident Council mins & avoided a lot of problems, since it was in the mins & it was a demand/request by the residents. Truth be told the residents would play bingo everyday of the week if I would allow it! It does get to be out of hand at times, residents get bossy, demanding, fighting over cards etc.. So I had to finally take it off of the calendar for a month. They had plenty of warnings that if they didn't stop behaving like children (verbally & in resident council) that it would be taken away. The social worker was asked to speak to all of the residents as well. So it did get removed & the next month it was placed back on the calendar & they acted like adults, went much smoother. I have alway had men as well as women attend, but the men usually enjoyed the Pokeno better that regular bingo. As far as prizes -- once a month was played for 25 cents & black-out was for a dollar -- the rest of the time we used play money & I had a bingo cart -- on the cart I had chips, candy, figurines, $1 store items (some of the items were donated by various folks & rest bought by act dept, set up a account with the folks that fill you vending machine or talk to the dietary manger about her vendors) Like some of you I had the problem of residents saving their bucks & cashing them all at once - so a new rule was put into effect the money expired after 30 days (we started Xeroxing our money every month ie. March was green for St Patty's Day, Feb was pink for Valentines etc. It takes some time & standing behind the change but in the end it works out & is accepted. Good Luck & hope this helps some of you.