|
The history of online bingo is obviously shorter than the history of bingo as a whole - the internet is very young by comparison with bingo! This article outlines a brief history of online bingo, and its rise in popularity especially in the UK.
The beginnings of online bingo
In the mid 90s online casinos and poker rooms were starting to appear on the web. They had fairly simple graphics at first and were limited by the low bandwidths (e.g. dial-up modems on telephone lines) available at the time. The first bingo games launch at about this time or soon after. Initially you could play for free and the games were funded by advertising with small prizes available for the winners, maybe up to $20 or so.
These early sites only offered bingo to start with, but soon enough (late 90's early 00's) they added other 'side games' such as slots (slot machines), and casino games such as roulette and black jack. This allowed the bingo players to play a quick game of something else whilst waiting for the next bingo game to start. The side games required money deposits, and the early bingo sites started to run pay-for bingo games allowing them to offer larger prizes for the bingo. Thus true deposit and play sites developed from these early play for small prizes games.
Online bingo offered to the UK
Deposit and play for money sites were offered in the UK in about 2003 and online Bingo's popularity in the UK rose rapidly. This popularity surprised some as it was thought that online Bingo couldn't provide the social aspect of going to a bingo club to play with friends. However, the chat functions and chatrooms available on modern online bingo web sites fulfill the social aspect admirably and communities built up around the bingo sites. It is sometimes said that going online to play bingo is more a chance to chat and catch up on gossip, with a bingo game going on at the same time!
Online bingo rises in popularity
This community aspect with bingo is different from other games online (casino games or poker for instance) and bingo is a lot less gambling and money oriented. The social aspect of online bingo helped fuel its further rise in the UK as the smoking ban came in in 2007 (in England and Wales, Scotland had banned smoking a year earlier) and as predicted this led to the closure of a lot of brick and mortar bingo halls. The loss of the smoking clientele made a lot of rooms unprofitable, and as the social aspect of bingo is very important, the non-smokers friends stayed away too.
Online bingo today
Online bingo is very popular in the UK (and other countries, e.g. USA, Canada, NZ and Aus and also Europe as the online version of the game spreads) offering a wide variety of games - 90 ball bingo, 75 ball bingo, side games like slots and casino games. Bingo is easy to play (compared to say poker), lots of fun and cheap too with most sites offering low priced cards for pennies. New games come along like 80 ball bingo. With added excitement and the prospect of a big win with progressive jackpots on some games, and lots of choice in one place for each bingo room, and lots of online bingo sites to choose between it is a great time to play online bingo.
More bingo history
References and further reading
|
Bingo History