Bingo may be an old game, but it’s one of the most popular games online today. In fact, there are now more than 100 million registered online bingo players worldwide.
The reason that bingo has been so popular over the years is probably because it’s such a simple game in principle. Whether you win or lose all depends on the luck of the draw. The earliest evidence of a type of bingo game was a lottery in the fifteenth century in Italy called Il Gioco del Loto d’Italia, where five balls were drawn from a pot of 90 balls. Through the centuries, the games have changed a little in format at different times, but the main basis of the game remains the same.
When an American entrepreneur called Edwin Lowe patented the game of bingo in the 1930s, it was after he’d seen a similar game played at a county fair in Georgia. To play beano, as it was known, players had to listen to number calls and cover up the corresponding numbers on their playing grids with a dried bean. When all the numbers were covered, they shouted out ‘beano’ to tell everyone else they’d won. When Lowe watched the game in Georgia, he heard a winner shout ‘bingo’ by accident – and the history of bingo reached a milestone turning point, with Lowe patenting the game name ‘Bingo’.
Today, though, with all the other gaming options that we have online, you might be surprised to see that bingo is still so popular, and actually becoming ever more so. Apart from its simplicity, there must be other reasons that draw so many players to the game.
The accessibility of bingo since it went online is something that attracts a lot of players. You don’t have to wait for a bingo hall to open its doors to play these days – you can play at any time of night or day, for just a few minutes or for hours at a time. The major bingo sites run bingo games around the clock so whenever you login to play, you only ever need to wait a couple of minutes before you can start playing.
As well as being accessible 24/7, there’s the value side of bingo to consider. While playing casino games like roulette or blackjack might be just as easy to do, each game will cost you more pro rata. Bingo games only require a tiny stake and each game will last a good few minutes. During that time you’re getting value entertainment as you can not only watch your cards being daubed by the software as the calls are made, but you can also chat to other players in the online bingo chat rooms.
It’s the social face of bingo that has really changed the game as it transitioned from being a land-based to an online game. While bingo halls used to require hush and silence for concentrating on the number calls, bingo sites are completely different. Chat is positively encouraged and people gossip about all kinds of things, not just bingo. There are also chat games which you can play while the main bingo game goes on, so you increase your chances of winning a prize.
