The game of Bingo has been an easily definable genre of entertainment for nice housewifey types with a blue rinse, beige tights and probably a floral hand knitted cardigan. It evokes memories of a lost generation of pre war babies who were stay at home mothers that baked cakes and cooked up a hearty stew on a cold winters evening. On a Tuesday, the routine changed a little, it was time to slap on a bit of lippy and light up a Lambert and Butler then go meet the girls down the bingo hall to win a bit of spending money, new tights or a tin of beans for the pantry.
Hall based Bingo games were an opportunity to socialise and have a bit of fun; gambling was just a cherry on top of the fun. Halls would be in town centres, on seafront piers and makeshift games would be set up in community centres nationwide. It was a social hub of entertainment and was the girls night out before the rise of the ladette lager drinker. Unfortunately, with the rise of the Stella swigging sub culture that swept Britain, Bingo fell out of fashion as a past time, and halls struggled to keep the customers coming through the doors. The game had to undergo a serious upheaval and re-brand itself.
It was in the late nineteen nineties that the first online version of the game hit the internet; using the digital platform, the game managed to ditch it's connotations of smoke filled rooms with dusty carpets being frequented by old age pensioners. Instead, the game took on a glam and glitzy new look in line with the hype of the turn of the millennium. Halls were so last century, the internet was so the future. The new style Bingo was able to attract a younger generation of computer savvy, money hungry players and the number of people that could play any one game was huge in comparison to hall based nights.
The consequences of this were the large payouts that were made possible by so many people taking part and paying for score cards. But where did this leave the social networking that was so much a part of the previous generations? Had online Bingo moved into an arena of pure online gambling? Investigating some of the more popular sites that offer nationwide participation, it can be seen that the networking between gamers is still thriving through the member's forums. It appears that close knit communities are forming, tipping each other off about possible big wins, sharing experiences about new games that appear online and offering to share a win in return for tips.
These friendships are forming and thriving across the country and overseas into Europe too; and it appears to be the younger generation of former ladettes that are getting in on the action. There are references to parties and nights on the town, so there is a local socialising network forming too. There was a danger that these online relationships could have killed what little social life was left to have at a local level by encouraging staying in and only ever communicating through a keyboard. The reality is different though and Bingo has managed to reclaim a generation of enthusiastic gamers. Thankfully, it's not just about the gambling after all. |
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