Random thoughts and Ravings.

Bingo has come a long way from those early Italian beginnings. The game that began as “Beano” and became Bingo in the States is an interpersonal pastime traditionally held in community halls or similar locations central to the local community.

This has created an ideal environment for social interaction and relationship building with other people from your own neighbourhood, as well as the chance to win a bit of cash while playing the fast-paced game.

In recent times, the advent of online bingo has dramatically altered the face of the game. Now a cyber game instead of a physical one, the player experiences bingo on the screen and in the mind.
There is no physical traveling to a venue, no shelling out of bank notes and no hand-held cards filled in manually. Online, everything is done for you including filling in your bingo cards, and the money is handled electronically.

For this reason many people feel online bingo is impersonal, and that the removal of the social interaction and the reason to leave the house and connect with the outside world, so important for many people especially senior citizens, has been a loss.

With the real players and venue substituted by sound and graphics, it is assumed that socializing does not take place and it’s all about one solitary individual and an impersonal Robot on the other side of the computer screen.

This is a false understanding of how online bingo works. Interpersonal interaction, while not face-to-face as with traditional bingo, is still an integral part of the game of Bingo. Chat rooms are full, 24 / 7, with players from around the world connecting. This makes your circle of bingo friends potentially enormous. Meeting with people from across the globe can also broaden your horizons, and you are no longer limited with the same handful of locals as you would have been in the local bingo hall.

In fact, some bingo sites attempted to do away with the chat functions as they felt this was an irrelevant aspect of the game, and erroneously felt that people only played online to win. These sites quickly learned that their judgment was skewed when their members left in droves to play at sites where the chatrooms were buzzing with friendly activity.

It is however true that playing for reward is also an important part of bingo. Now, with online bingo, you are often in line to win far larger jackpots than you were at the school hall on a Wednesday evening. In addition to the multiple jackpots – with winnings of up to a million pounds in the pot every week, most online bingo sites also offer promotions with fantastic prizes – from cruises to state of the art household appliances.

Another facet of online bingo is the incorporation of instant games as well as numerous opportunities to win money. Free bingo games are also an advantage to the old bingo hall system, where you had to pay an entrance fee for every bingo game.

Bingo has certainly come a long way. The evolution of the game from traditional to online has added convenience and safety – especially of importance to individuals who are unable to leave home for health or location and reasons. The grandmother who is afraid to walk home from bingo after dark, and the man in a wheelchair who misses meeting his buddies and has hours of time to fill can both have fun, win money and meet people online.

While a great many people still enjoy the traditional way of playing bingo, online bingo’s popularity and success prove that it is here to stay - it may even replace traditional bingo one day.