BURBANK : Bulldogs Betting on Sunday Bingo

To win at bingo, you need some luck, but to raise money, good timing is the key factor.

Organizers of Bulldog Bingo have learned that lesson all too well. They are hoping a move from Wednesday night to Sunday afternoon will bring thousands of dollars into starving clubs and sports programs at Burbank High School.

Bulldog Bingo--named for the school’s sports teams--was started last March by a group of parents. But the timing was all wrong. The high school found it was competing with other bingo games and bringing in a fraction of the players that had been expected.

“Right now, we’re barely breaking even,” said Chris Krohn, president of the Bingo Boosters and a physical education teacher and coach at Burbank High. Each bingo night is used to sponsor a different club or team. After expenses, the night would only raise about $75 to $100, only enough to buy a half-dozen balls for the softball team, Krohn said.

School boosters hope that the move to Sundays--scheduled to start Oct. 17--will make Burbank High’s game the only bingo game from Reseda to Pasadena, Krohn said. The move could draw players from the surrounding communities in the eastern San Fernando Valley, perhaps as many as 300 to 400, instead of the 60 to 70 now.

That could translate into as much as $5,000 a night, Krohn said.

The school also hopes to attract players with celebrity callers. The first to sign on was talk show host Tom Snyder, who came to fame in the 1970s as a late night talk show host and now appears on the cable channel CNBC, organizers and Snyder’s spokesman said.