Bank Night facts for kids

Bank Night was a popular game played in movie theaters across the United States during the Great Depression. This was a time when many people struggled to find jobs and money. Bank Night was like a special lottery designed to bring more people to the movies. A man named Charles U. Yaeger, who used to work for 20th Century Fox, created and sold this game idea to theaters.

In 1936, Bank Night was played in about 5,000 movie theaters. Many other theaters also played similar games. The popularity of Bank Night and other games like it helped the movie industry stay strong during the tough times of the Great Depression.

What Was Bank Night?

Bank Night was a special game that movie theaters could rent. Depending on the theater's size, it cost them between $5 and $50 each week. When a theater rented Bank Night, they received a special film trailer to show before movies. They also got a book to sign up players and equipment to pick winners.

How Did Bank Night Work?

Anyone could sign up their name in a book at the theater. You didn't even need to buy a movie ticket to sign up! On "Bank Night," which was usually once a week, a name would be picked randomly. The person whose name was called had to quickly get to the stage, usually within a few minutes, to claim their prize.

Even though you didn't have to buy a ticket to enter the drawing, Bank Night made many people come to the theater. A lot of them ended up buying tickets anyway to watch a movie while they waited for the drawing. This clever idea helped theaters attract more customers and make more money.

The Story of Bank Night

Charles Yaeger invented Bank Night in 1931 in Denver, Colorado. The game became successful very quickly. Even though it made a lot of money, government officials often questioned if it was legal. This was because many places had rules against lotteries.

Early Success and Challenges

Because Bank Night was so popular, many other games copied the idea to avoid paying Yaeger's fee. These copycat games had names like Prosperity Night, Treasure Night, and Movie Sweepstakes.

For example, the Palace Theatre in Marion, Ohio, started a weekly sweepstakes in 1936. People got a free ticket for the drawing if they bought a movie ticket. But anyone could also just stop by the theater and sign up for the drawing without buying a movie ticket. Each person got a ticket with a horse's name.

During the drawing, names of 20 horses were picked from a big wire basket. These names were then matched with numbers on a blackboard. Then, a film of a horse race was shown. The order the horses finished in the race decided who won the prizes. The first-place horse's number won the biggest prize, often $200! If the winner wasn't in the theater, the prize money would grow for the next week.

A local lawyer tried to stop the Palace Theatre's game, saying it was against Ohio's anti-lottery rules. There was even a dramatic event where officials tried to stop the game during a show! But a jury decided the game was legal, and the theater quickly started it again.

Why Bank Night Ended

Bank Night started to lose its popularity in the late 1930s. Other games, like Screeno, became popular. Also, big cities like Chicago and New York City started to take strong stands against Bank Night and similar games in 1936. Soon, theater owners in many places faced arrest or fines for running these games.

The economy also started to get better, and people had more money to spend. Then, World War II began, which changed what people wanted to do for fun. All these things together caused Bank Night to become less popular.

Bank Night in Pop Culture

Bank Night was so well-known that it appeared in movies and cartoons!

• It was the main idea for the 1936 short film Neighborhood House starring Charley Chase.
• It was joked about in the films After the Thin Man (1936) and Calling All Husbands (1940).
• Famous cartoon director Tex Avery mentioned Bank Nights in his Warner Brothers cartoons A Day at the Zoo and Thugs with Dirty Mugs (both from 1939).
• It was also humorously mentioned in the 1940 film Road to Singapore with Hope and Crosby, and in the 1939 movie On Your Toes.

Today, a magic trick where a prize is hidden in one of many envelopes is sometimes called "Bank Night," named after this old game.