Once a month in our neighborhood, dinner is served early, chores are quickly accomplished and families are left to fend for themselves as women gather for an evening of fun, conversation and food.

It’s Bunco time, and whether you spell it Bunco or Bunko, this game of dice, luck and prizes is catching on throughout our neighborhood, with new Bunco groups starting up all the time.

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Though many Bunco groups are comprised of busy women who see Bunco as a way to keep up with people they don’t get to see on a regular basis, one neighborhood group came about a big differently and shares a common denominator.

“Our group is from a block in the neighborhood, so it was a fun way to meet people. Almost everyone lives on the same two blocks of Avalon,” says group member MaryBeth Shapiro.

“It is really fun because there is a wide range of ages. It is refreshing because it gives a new perspective for mothers with older children and mothers with young children.”

These women have found Bunco evenings something they can do just for themselves.

“I started this group about a year ago,” member Lisa Rubenstein says. “I thought it would be good for the moms.

“It’s not so much the game as it is a good excuse for a bunch of people to get together. It’s a lot of fun.”

The women also find it fitting that a much earlier group of women living on Avalon organized to meet in much the same way and for the same reasons.

“There is a social club that started in the 1950s called the Avalon Sewing Group,” Shapiro says.

“When we were toasting the end of the year, one woman said it was kind of neat that there was another Avalon Street group before us.”

Like the Bunco group of today, the Avalon Sewing Group was comprised of women who lived on Avalon and met regularly to socialize and, occasionally, to sew. Then, as now, they formed a sort of network that watched out for each other’s families and offered advice and friendship.

“It is as much of a support group as it is anything else,” Shapiro says.

So what exactly is Bunco? For starters, you don’t need a lot of fancy equipment – three dice and a score table for each table, one hand bell and you’re in business. A Bunco group is typically comprised of 12 women, though the number varies with each group and occasionally couples will play. Typically, each member pays $5 a month for prizes for the winners – there are prizes for everything, even one for the person with the most losses or most ties. The prize can either be a small gift or money. Bunco evenings are held at a different house each month, and the hostess is responsible for refreshments and prizes.

The object of the game is to earn 21 points, which are earned when the rolled dice match up with the designated number for that round. If the designated number is a three and a player rolls the dice and gets all threes, the player gets an instant “Bunco” and 21 points. More likely, the player will only get one three or none and earns points accordingly.

Everyone tries to earn their way to the “Head Table’ where they want to be simply because it’s the head table. This table also is the keeper of the bell, which is rung when a team at the head table reaches 21 points.

While game rules vary from group to group, everyone agrees the game is almost ridiculously easy to learn and, frankly, the players make no excuse about its simplicity.

“It is very simple,” says Kerri Jacobson, who sometimes subs for the Avalon Group. “It’s a mindless game – you can roll the dice and still talk. I would compare it to a women’s poker night.”

And because you can learn the game in minutes, it leaves lots of time for socializing and catching up on neighborhood news in a relaxed setting. Four people play at each table, but the seating arrangements change after each series of dice rolls, giving everyone a chance to sit with and talk to every member of the group.

“Every time you move up, you switch partners,” Shapiro says.

Once introduced to Bunco, it’s not unusual to find that many players join more than one group or will substitute for a number of groups. And while it’s usually an evening of camaraderie, some groups have been known to get serious about the roll of the dice. At these more competitive gatherings, players report the game can get downright serious.

For instance, in some Bunco groups, when someone rolls “Bunco,” each woman at that table gets a chance to grab – or sometimes lunge – for the dice and win the points.

“There are grabbers, and there are non-grabbers,” says Shapiro with a laugh. “Our group is more relaxed. We just play the regular Bunco and baby Bunco.”

Jacobson, who subs for two different groups, has played with both competitive groups and more laid-back ones. While admitting that it can get a bit loud and even risky at the more competitive games, she enjoys both.

“I have experienced both kinds, but with that grabbing thing, you can get scratched accidentally,” Jacobson says. “It’s a competitive game. It’s been fun both ways.”

When someone can’t make a meeting and a substitute can’t be found to replace her, Bunco players have a contingency to deal with it by having a “ghost player” (sometimes called a dummy) to take the place of an absent player. For this neighborhood group, though, the game is so popular, there’s usually no need to resort to a phantom player.

“We don’t often have to have a ghost because we usually have an extra person or two,” Shapiro says.

Though the Bunco game of today is played by hard-working and generally law-abiding citizens, most players may be surprised to learn it wasn’t always the case.

To see how the craze started, you would have to go back to England in the late 1800s when Bunco was known as 8-Dice Cloth. The World Bunco Association reports the game was unknown in the United States until it was introduced to San Francisco in 1855 during the Gold Rush by a crooked gambler.

The swindler made some changes to the rules and renamed it Bunco as he traveled from the East to West coast with numerous stops at the gold fields. He found many men willing to squander their easy money on gambling. A few years later, the name was changed again, this time to Bunco or Bunko, and it was played at numerous gambling locations knows as Bunco Parlors. Soon, the game earned a very shady reputation, and the term Bunco came to mean anything to do with confidence games, scams or swindling.

By the end of the century, the game returned to respectability and became a family game played in homes. But not for long, as the game once again became infamous. According the WBA, Bunco gambling parlors resurfaced throughout the country during Prohibition and the Roaring ‘20s. The most infamous speak-easies and Bunco dice parlors were located in and around Chicago.

And while many present Bunco players may not realize it, there really was a Bunco Squad comprised of detectives who raided Bunco playing parlors. Not to worry, though. After Prohibition, the illegal form of Bunco declined and not much was heard about the game until the early 1980s. Since then, it has returned to the neighborhood scene as a popular, and legal, outlet for social interaction.

And what about the men in these Bunco-playing households? Most have the attitude that it’s a good thing for their wives and great for the neighborhood.

“It’s a wonderful group of ladies,” says Kenny Rubenstein, Lisa’s husband. “It is just another way of bringing the neighborhood together.

Still, he does take precautions on Bunco nights.

“When I walk the dog late in the evening while there is a Bunco party going on, I take a route that does not go near the house where the group is playing,” Rubenstein says.

“I don’t want to get caught in the crossfire!”