Moms On a Roll

Maybe you’ve never heard of bunco. (It’s a dice game that began in England and then moved to the American West around the time of Probibition.) Maybe you have heard of it, or you’ve played it once or twice. Or maybe you’re one of the approximately 25 million suburban women who get together to hold bunco parties on the weekends.

The has become so popular among mothers, in fact, that it is now called the “housewife’s drinking game.” Although some play for the competition and the cash prizes, mostly this is just another example of women trying to forget the stress of their weekly housework, carpools, and PTA meetings by getting together for a few hours of girls’ night.

As further evidence of this gaming trend amongst women - especially mothers - Procter & Gamble is holding the first World Bunco Championship in Las Vegas to raise money for breast cancer research at the end of the month.

Most of the women play with their friends, while some join groups in order to meet locals they had never met before. Some of the mothers stay at home with their kids, though others work outside of the home. But what brings them together is the fact that all of them feel like they need a chance to unwind with other mothers once in awhile.

With so much talk today about the stress of being a stay-at-home or working mom, the extravagance and competition involved in being a parent today, and, most recently, cocktail-hour playdates, you might think that bunco night is a recent phenomenon. But perhaps this kind of activity is more of a resurgence than a development – many of the women who play recall their own mothers getting together with friends to play bridge or mah-jongg. 

Still, this trend is rather puzzling. It was not too long ago that mothers began to worry about their kids gambling (usually their teenage sons) due to the popularity of the World Poker Tour. It was also at that time that some schools began instituting zero-tolerance policies regarding gambling that was going on during class or on school property. And although the World Bunco Championship is for a good cause, and more and more women are looking for groups and clubs to join as a place to socialize and vent, I still have to wonder what happened to the good old days of book clubs or Tupperware parties. Perhaps they, too, like mah-jongg, are now simply things of the past.

Image: art.com