Horse poo bingo for a good cause

Horse poo bingo is a real thing in Canada.

Horse poo bingo is a real thing. Yes, you read that right! In Calgary, Canada, there is a longstanding tradition which involves a horse taking a poo on a grid of numbers.

Every year, a grid of numbers is painted on the street in the intersection of Fifth Street and Ninth Avenue S.W. right in the middle of the Calgary Stampede parade route.

It started 15 years ago to keep people entertained as the parade went through the city.

The bingo grid has 80 squares, each randomly numbered, and tickets with a corresponding number are then sold to parade watchers for $2 each.

The first time a horse poops on a square, the ticket holder wins $80, which they split with a charity.

This year, the charity is one that helps support military families.

If, in the unfortunate case, a horse doesn’t manage to have a poo, then the event’s organisers have a bag of horse poo to launch into the air to see where it lands on the bingo grid.

“It’s something we set up about 15 years ago because there was a bit of a boring time when people were waiting for the parade to happen,” said Rod McLeod, a 37-year Calgary Stampede volunteer. “So we went, ‘Why don’t we set up’ – we called it a poop target at the time!”