My mother has won the bingo eleven Thursdays running

From: Fermin Calvo To: Idoia Aramendi Subject: Complaint about the Thursday bingo Date: 25 August 2026, 08:12

Dear Ms Aramendi,

My mother, Milagros Beitia, says she has won the care home's bingo eleven Thursdays in a row. She then picks the Sunday film. The first week I found it funny. The eleventh calls for figures.

I am an actuary. I have spent twenty-seven years working with unusual frequencies. I also know that an improbable run can be perfectly legitimate. That is why I am not yet accusing any member of staff.

I need four checks:

1. Number of residents present each Thursday. 2. Total number of cards sold. 3. Cards played by my mother. 4. The name of whoever called each bingo and the person who received each prize.

Milagros worked forty-one years on a bank counter. She would spot condescension before I would. If somebody is favouring her because of her age, the gesture will end up humiliating her.

I would ask for a reply before the next game. I will wait for the register before filing a formal complaint.

Yours sincerely, Fermin Calvo Insurance actuary

From: Idoia Aramendi To: Fermin Calvo Subject: Re: Complaint about the Thursday bingo Date: 25 August 2026, 13:46

Dear Mr Calvo,

I have compared the bingo minutes against the film programming sheet, and the two documents were recording different things. The minutes show eleven wins shared among five residents: three by Milagros, three by Teresa, two by Pilar, two by Carmen and one by Rosario. On the cinema sheet your mother appears as the holder of the choice for every one of the corresponding Sundays. Putting the two columns together turned two administrative facts into a single apparent run.

This is a small activity. Eight or nine residents come down to the multipurpose room and between seven and nine cards are sold in total. The unit price is twenty cents. In every session examined, six cards were charged to Milagros: two stayed in front of her and four were handed out, one each, to Teresa, Pilar, Carmen and Rosario. Each of them marked hers from her own seat. The remaining attendees bought the few cards outside the group.

The balls were called by different auxiliaries according to the rota. The series used show no duplicates and no cards held back. What remains to be established is why a single resident was paying for cards spread across five tables, and how the eight choices arising from the other four winners ended up in her name. I will speak to the five of them separately tomorrow and set down their answers together.

Yours sincerely, Idoia Aramendi Director of the care home

From: Fermin Calvo To: Idoia Aramendi Subject: Questions about the six cards Date: 25 August 2026, 14:19

Idoia,

Take a session with eight cards sold. My mother paid for six and only plays two. So it is not my mother who wins: her group wins, and with six cards out of eight you would expect them to take three Thursdays out of four.

My initial calculation started from a large table. Correction: it started from an imaginary table. With six cards out of twenty-five, which is the table I had invented without asking, eleven in a row would be one chance in more than a million. With six out of eight, and counting the whole group instead of one lady on her own, it is one in twenty-four. I have spent twenty-seven years being paid not to confuse those two figures.

Three questions remain:

1. Are the four residents playing for Milagros or for themselves? 2. Who keeps the cafeteria voucher when one of them wins? 3. How does my mother receive a film choice that belongs to somebody else?

There is no need to review the drawing of the balls as long as the answers agree among the five of them and with the money on record. It would be worth separating in the register who pays, who plays and who receives each part of the prize. At the moment all three functions are mixed together.

Please suspend my complaint until the interviews are finished. Do not close it yet. First I want to know whether the arrangement is voluntary and symmetrical.

Fermin Calvo Actuary

From: Idoia Aramendi To: Fermin Calvo Subject: Outcome of the interviews Date: 26 August 2026, 16:52

Fermin,

I interviewed them separately, in the visitors' room, and not one of them asked me why. Rosario started answering before she sat down. All five described the same arrangement with no significant discrepancies. Milagros buys the six cards and pays 1.20 euros. She plays two. She hands the other four to Teresa, Pilar, Carmen and Rosario, who each play their own, sitting in their usual places and without any instruction from staff. If any of them calls bingo, she keeps the whole 4.80-euro cafeteria voucher. The right to pick the film passes to Milagros. In return for the whole arrangement, your mother gives up her share of the Thursday tea trolley to them.

The exchange suits them for different reasons. Two prefer the voucher because they have visitors in the cafeteria; another does not want to buy cards; the fourth accepts Milagros's bun and keeps her own juice. Your mother pays more and keeps the only prize she cares about. None of the other four puts in money, loses a possible drink or gives up marking her card. All five said: "Nobody loses here."

Milagros called bingo on three of the eleven Thursdays. The other eight were called by Teresa, Pilar, Carmen and Rosario, who kept their vouchers and handed over the choice on the spot, exactly as they had agreed before playing. No auxiliary took part in those transfers. The minutes identify the winners correctly; it was the cinema sheet that left out where the right came from.

When I asked which title Milagros had chosen at the last session, I got five different answers. Carmen asked for a vote in front of me to demonstrate the procedure. I have held that part back until I can explain it to you with the full result.

Idoia Aramendi Management

From: Fermin Calvo To: Idoia Aramendi Subject: Withdrawal and one last check Date: 26 August 2026, 17:31

Idoia,

I withdraw the insinuation against the staff. The complaint can be closed once it is on record in writing that all five accept the arrangement.

I am asking for three adjustments:

1. Record Milagros as the payer of the six cards. 2. Keep each resident down as the player of the card she marks. 3. Separate the cafeteria voucher from the film right when they go to different people.

I also correct myself on the main point. I investigated a run of rigged draws without asking the size of the draw. Then I confused the winner of the bingo with the holder of the film choice. Both mistakes were mine. In my trade the second one has a name: I defined the event wrongly. I counted eleven wins by one lady where there were eleven wins by five and eleven choices by one, and choices are not drawn out of a bag.

There is still the answer you held back. My mother claims she rules the programming, but over these weeks they have shown titles she would never pick on her own. I want to know what happens after she formally receives the right.

Fermin

From: Idoia Aramendi To: Fermin Calvo Subject: The Sunday choice Date: 27 August 2026, 12:34

Fermin,

After every bingo, the five of them vote on the film. Two put forward candidates, another rules out the ones they have already seen, and they all raise their hands. Milagros uses her status as holder to tell the activities office the winning title. Milagros's three wins and the eight transfers have produced eleven votes, so they have spent eleven Sundays deciding this house's programming together.

The rules grant the choice to whoever wins and allow that person to consult other residents. We will keep the arrangement in place. From this afternoon, the register will distinguish payer, players, voucher recipient and holder of the film choice. Administration has resisted the temptation to set up a standing subcommittee for five ladies who already hold meetings without inviting us. I enclose the minutes of the trial vote, signed by all five: it is the only document in this house to come out of a meeting with no agenda.

I witnessed the trial vote. A French film, a courtroom film and the western announced by the activities office were proposed. The western got one hand, belonging to a resident who does not even play the bingo. Milagros looked at the poster, gathered her four companions and said: "We're winning again this afternoon, because I'm not watching cowboys on Sunday."

Idoia