Known all over the world in many different forms, the game of bingo is one of almost pure luck. Since it first became a mainstream game, bingo has seen many peaks and troughs throughout its years a much loved form of entertainment.

The origins of the actual form of bingo marking off numbers on a board after they have been 'called' can be dated back many, many decades. However, the actual game of bingo as we know it today is less than a century old. Brought in to the western world by a traveling carnival, the game was discovered in France and soon became a firm favourite for the carnival, regularly attracting masses of people to its stall, a large amount of which were only there to purely view this 'brand new' game in action. Originally called 'Beano', due to the players placing dried beans on their game card, the game transformed into 'Bingo' shortly before it became a massively popular game. It happened when a female player of 'Beano' became so excited when she won, she stuttered a few times and shouted 'B-B-B-eengo!'. Humorous, but completely true.

Fall throughout the 80's and 90's 100 Bingo saw a massive popularity after the Second World War up until the late 1980's, especially in the United Kingdom. It became a predominantly lower class game and was played regularly in bingo halls up and down the country.

When the 1990's came, bingo became less popular. People were finding other ways to spend their spare time and money and bingo headed into a decline. Bingo halls closed down and only a handful remained at the end of the decade. There is no set reason why bingo popularity declined throughout this decade. Many put it down to the internet boom, with people spending more time in doors online, whilst others put it down to purely the fact that bingo was, in comparison, becoming a little too boring.

However, after the turn of the millennium, with the increased popularity in online casino gaming, online bingo halls began to spring up all over the World Wide Web. First as an integrated part of online casinos and then in more recent years as sole, online bingo halls offering a variety of priced bingo games to the masses. The different priced games meant everyone could play from the 5p cards to the 5.00 GBP cards, everyone could play a game of bingo. Furthermore, the reduction in overheads (for example, no bricks and mortar bingo halls means all the costs associated with buildings are not necessary) means the online bingo halls can offer greater and more regular jackpots.

Today, bingo is as strong as it ever has been. Online bingo is now a multi-million pound industry, with the companies ecstatic with their figures and the players happy with the fact they can play a game of bingo any time of day or night, wherever they are in the world. No longer is bingo a game played by the lower-classes, but a game open to all, regardless of who you are, what you do and where you come from, me, I'll stick with Poker!

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 11:24 am and is filed under Gambling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.