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!
