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Bingo

The digital world has finally caught up with my desires! No, I'm not talking about porn, I'm talking about the wonderful explosion of online bingo! It used to be next to impossible to log on and find another bingo fan, much less an entire population of fans, tons of games, endless information and fun! But has anybody looked at whether this is a good thing, a bad thing, or an in-between thing? Bingo is usually a communal game, where friends get together on a somewhat regular basis. This social aspect of the game has been inherent for as long as bingo has existed, that is, until online bingo sprang into existence. Bingo is, for the first time, playable on your own. You don't need a friend to go with, you don't even need to go anywhere!

Obviously there are two sides to this. If you're a bingo lover, you can grab a game online whenever you don't have much else to do; sounds good right? But what if the online communities were to dig into the land based properties. Does anybody out there know if bingo halls have felt any effect at this point in time? I find it unlikely that much of an impact has been made yet, but it's early on in online bingo's life. There are some huge Internet bingo games that take place, with thousands of people participating. Does this not mean that there are that many thousand less bingo players leaving for a parlor with their friends? In a sense it does, but what you must also consider is the fact that the Internet players are spread out over a long distance. This means that if you were to take any one bingo hall in particular and measure the effect of the online tournament on it's bottom line, you wouldn't see much, as at most only a handful of players in the online tournament would have gone to that hall anyway! So although you can look cumulatively and see a significant effect of online bingo on the pre-established land based games, it is hard to blame it for any bingo hall going under.

Is there more to the story though? There kind of is, as a good number of the land based bingo games that take place are for church fundraising efforts, or other non-profit organizations. Online bingo on the other hand, requires a team of programmers, web designers, hosting and bandwidth issues, and many other costly issues to take care of. In this sense any online bingo site is usually for-profit. Any influence that online bingo may make on land-based ventures in the future may very well be argued as a negative occurrence.

But as I said earlier in this piece, the ease and convenience of being able to find and play a game instantly for bingo lovers can be a huge blessing. As you're probably aware, a good portion of bingo players are part of our elderly population, and as such can often have a harder time hopping around from house to bingo hall to house etc. Online bingo represents an easy and fun way to avoid the difficulties in getting to the bingo hall on a Friday night.

There are also many people who love bingo, and would love to go to their local bingo hall to play, but can't because of the atmosphere. Loads of land based bingo halls are filled with smokers, and even if you're not one yourself, chances are you'll take in a good lungful or ten over the course of a night. Many modern bingo halls have separate rooms or separate games for non-smokers, but this just breaks up the pot and makes the prizes smaller. The issue of smoking in public schools and churches (where many bingo games are held) has become a legal debate of sorts for New York state. So online bingo becomes a haven once again, now for people who like to play without smoke, cigars, clothes, whatever! I'm obviously all for it, and play online bingo almost as much as I do at the club! 

Bingo can be played in halls or in the privacy of your own home online. Bingo rules and payouts and play variations vary from place to place. Bingo brochures detailing particular games, rules and payouts are usually available at each respective location.

Basically, players buy cards with numbers on them in a 5 x 5 grid corresponding to the five letters in the word B-I-N-G-O. Numbers such as B-2 or 0-68 are then drawn at random (out of a possible 75) until one player completes a 'Bingo' line with five numbers in a vertical, horizontal or diagonal row on one of their cards and wins the prize.

The numbers are announced quickly, so you must pay careful attention to the numbers that are called and mark them quickly and accurately on your card(s).  If you are playing online, the software will mark your cards for you, however you must notice when you Bingo and hit the "I Won" button.

The caller keeps calling numbers until one or more players claim BINGO. Then the game stops and the numbers are verified. If there is a winner, the prize is awarded and a new bingo game begins with new cards. If there is more than one winner, the prize is split among all the winners.

In Las Vegas many variations including 'Letter X', 'Six Pack', 'Coverall' and 'Indian Style Papoose' Bingo are offered. Additionally, some places offer special progressive payouts as high as $10,000.

When playing online, your bingo cards may be randomly selected for you, or you will have a choice of cards from a grouping. Most online games give you 3 or 4 cards. Other games let you take more.  Statistically, the more cards you play at one time, the higher your chances of winning.

Every online bingo game has a caller or a display board for the bingo numbers. The game pattern is also displayed. Some games automatically mark the numbers on your card for you.

Bingo tips:

There is very little you can do to influence or predict the outcome at Bingo. Bingo is a game of luck and is played primarily for fun.

Common Bingo terms

History of Bingo

Bingo is a relatively new game, descendent from lotteries of old. Lotteries were first organized and used collectively by the Italian government in the 1530's. Bingo's history stems from a French lotto lover who developed an alternative version of the lotteries that existed at the time. The initial alteration had three horizontal rows and nine vertical rows with numbered and blank squares in random arrangements. The columns were broken into sets of 10 numbers, 1-10, 11-20, all the way up to 90 in the last column. The bingo balls were chips in those days, and pulled out of a sac by the caller. The first player to cover a horizontal row was declared the winner.

In the 1800's Bingo variations began to be used as teaching devices. Germany used a version intended to teach its youth multiplication tables. Other educational lotto games existed for spelling, history, biology, you name it! This trend has never died, a quick walk through your local toys-r-us will most likely reveal a Milton Bradley variation of the game with Sesame Street characters, intended to teach numbers and counting.

Up until this point though, bingo was not bingo, it was still known as a lotto game or variation. The coining of the term bingo is most often attributed to a slip of the tongue, in the excitement of yelling 'Beano'! Beano was the name of a carnival game traveling around New York state around the same time that Edwin S. Lowe was searching for a game to rescue his struggling toy company venture.

Lowe tells the story of going back to New York and gathering up beans, rubber stamps and cardboard cards to hold his own beano get-together with friends. As a sort of test Lowe acted as the caller, and it wasn't long before he realized the addictive qualities of the game. In one of these initial games, a friend of Lowe's was fast approaching a winning card as Lowe watched with fascination. As the woman approached the win she became more and more exciting, more tense, and finally when she won she jumped up and tried to stammer out 'beano!' but it came out garbled as 'bingo!'.

Lowe describes the moment as momentous (yes, that's how I'm describing that), and recalls knowing at that point in time he would be marketing the game as Bingo!

One story always mentioned when discussing the history of bingo is about the one man who went insane over the game (yes, a million women have followed suit). The tale goes as so: Lowe was approached a couple of years after the release of Bingo by a parishioner who had adopted the game as a church fundraiser. The parishioner had come across the problem of cards with the same number combinations, in which there were multiple winners on the same game. To circumvent this Lowe approached a preeminent mathematician of the time, Carl Leffler of Columbia University. Leffler took on the task of creating 6000 unique Bingo cards, slowly working them out one card at a time. Being paid on a cards produced basis, Leffler found the more he made the harder his job was, and near the end was charging $100 for each unique card produced. As the story goes, soon after completing the task of creating all 6000 cards, the professor went insane, perhaps by direct result! The rest, as they say, is bingo history. 

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF BINGO
1. Thou shalt not sit in thy neighbours lucky seat
2. Thou shalt not stare at thy neigbours card
3. Thou shalt not take the callers name in vain
4. Thou shalt not yell false "Bingo"
5. Thou shalt not wish bad luck on thy neighbour
6. Thou shalt not threaten to kill the "caller"
7. Thou shalt not steal thy husband's money for Bingo
8. Thou shalt not brag about how much thou hast won
9. Thou shalt not whine about how much thou hast lost
10 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours winnings

These sayings are a HOOT! If the bingo caller at your local hall has any cute little sayings, I'd love to feature them here, if not, why not let them see this list! They might get a laugh out of it.

At the beginning No. 1
One little duck No. 2
One little flea No. 3
Legs Eleven 11
Devil's number 13
Two little ducks 22
A duck & a Flea 23
Two little fleas 33
A flea in heaven 37
Open two doors 44
Clicketty click 66
Any way up 69
Two fat ladies 88
*Top Of The House* 90

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