Armed robbers held up staff in a busy bingo hall in Dundalk, Co Louth on Wednesday night.
Four men entered the hall where about 100 people were playing bingo shortly after 9pm and threatened staff with a hammer and a baseball bat. The men left the premises on Racecourse Road after stealing a sum of money and fled in a silver car.
The operations manager of the bingo hall raided in Dundalk last night says that the thieves caused more disruption and stress than damage.
“They must have been disappointed with what they got as there wasn’t a huge amount of cash,” David Bell told the Michael Reade show on local radio station LM FM.
“They went straight to the area where the money was. There are two points where we handle cash. The staff did what they’re trained to do and handed over the cash, no one was put at risk.
“Within two minutes they were in and out.”
He said that he did not see any firearms. The raiders were armed with baseball bats and lump hammers.
One of the raiders was wearing a Halloween mask and three others were wearing balaclavas, one bingo player y told the programme.
“It was very scary. The guy in the Halloween mask shouted at us ‘stay where youse are’ so we did. One woman fell off the chair with fright.”
Mr Bell said there were 100 people playing bingo at the time of the raid.
Some of his staff thought the raiders’ accents were from outside the Dundalk area, he said. But they did appear to have a knowledge of the lay out of the bingo hall and knew where the cash was kept.
“It is a public area so they might have been here before or they had information from someone familiar with the hall.
“There is not a lot of money in bingo because it goes out in prizes.”
In a statement on Facebook, Let’s Bingo said it had to close early due to the robbery to allow gardaí to interview witnesses and staff.
“We apologise for the inconvenience caused by such mindless criminals,” the statement said. “The main thing we are concerned with is that nobody was hurt or injured.”
No arrests have been made and investigating gardaí are appealing for witnesses.
