![]() ![]() ![]() In August 2014, SPD filled the building with a group of officers and police vehicles as they completed required Florida Department of Law Enforcement handgun training. Instead, the Seminole Police Department occasionally used the deteriorating, empty shell of the building for training exercises. It was repaired, but never used for bingo again. In 2005, Hurricane Wilma wreaked havoc throughout South Florida and tore the facility apart. It closed again in February 1989 for renovations and reopened in April 1990 to coincide with the filming of a movie at the bingo hall titled “Arrive Alive,” which was never completed. When it reopened in September 1988 under new management, the raucous atmosphere and many of the extra-curricular enticements were gone. By April 1988 – barely a year after opening – the hall was deeply in debt and closed. ![]() The good times didn’t last long as financial issues plagued the outside entity that managed the hall. The tribe wasn’t concerned the BC bingo hall would take business away from Hollywood the belief was if Big Cypress took business from Hollywood, it wouldn’t make a difference to the tribe’s overall bottom line. The Hollywood and Tampa halls were the most profitable in the country. At the time the BC facility opened, the tribe already had three successful bingo halls in Hollywood, Tampa and Brighton. The Seminole Tribe partnered with developers Richard Knowlton and William Van Horn, who invested $4 million to build the bingo hall. The Big Cypress bingo hall in the process of being demolished in October 2020. The idea was to change the image of bingo from a staid grandmother’s game to something as exciting as the Super Bowl to perk and retain guests’ interest. Additionally, the lure of non-bingo activities, such as Dixieland bands, closed circuit TV and TV gameshow-type giveaways, proved to be popular. Players were drawn to the bingo hall’s generous cash prizes, up to $250,000, along with plenty of new cars to be won. But the bingo hall didn’t always hit the jackpot it closed and re-opened numerous times before finally shutting its doors in the 1990s. Most players were bussed to BC from cities around the U.S. The 5,600-seat bingo hall, said to be the size of two football fields, opened with great fanfare in March 1987, even garnering a story in The New York Times. (Tribune file photo)īIG CYPRESS - The Big Cypress bingo facility – once touted as the largest in the world, but reduced to a vacant skeleton for the past several years – was recently demolished to make way for future development. When the Big Cypress bingo hall opened in 1987, thousands of people came to try their luck at high-stakes bingo. ![]()
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