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Bingo Number Calling

If there is one facet of bingo that is most well known it has to be the nicknames associated with the various numbers. 'Legs eleven' 'two fat ladies' and any other number of calls, however questionable they may be (15, 'young and keen' anyone?) are part and parcel of the game.

These calls are such a recognisable, marketable and inclusive element of the game - you simply have to sit in any primary school hall during a bingo night to see that every age group take enjoyment in calling the numbers as they come out. Yet, they are one of the elements that are missing from the latest phenomenon in the bingo world.

Internet Bingo is a rapidly growing business in a rapidly growing industry. The online gaming world is huge and makes vast sums of money, and Internet bingo seems to be one of the key components in its rise. Most Internet gaming companies that incorporate bingo (leading UK online bingo sites like Mecca and Foxy for instance) also offer online casinos and the like, maximising their opportunities to entertain you in any number of different ways and convince you to part with your hard earned cash.

With internet bingo however, the social aspect seems to be removed. A lot of adverts make a big deal out of the possibility of meeting people online and making friends through the Internet network of online bingo players, but at the end of the day the game remains something of an individual exercise. There's no putting your arms around the person next to you and celebrating. Of course this might have certain advantages, there are an ever increasing number of news stories of people taking each other court about broken verbal contracts to split winnings from bingo, in the online world, you wouldn't have to share your winnings with anyone.

The thing is that the bingo game is so compelling that it overcomes the more or less complete removal of the traditional social aspects of the game. There are any number of reasons why this might be true, and it would be impossible to point out any specific factor.

Still, the calls are part of the tradition of bingo, part of the reasons why people enjoy it, and part of the social element. There isn't such enjoyment in murmuring the calls for the numbers when they flash up on your computer screen as there is in roaring it out with a hundred or so other people.

Needless to say the game will continue to evolve, the Internet aspect will have an impact on the version of the game that is played in halls, and new calls will come out, as they have done since the game was first adopted in America. It won't be long before numbers such as 01 will be called 'binary' or something similar, you may laugh it's not entirely beyond the realms of possibility, who knows maybe it already is somewhere, such is the variation between customs and individual callers.

The Internet version of the game is here to stay, but the hope must be that the calls don't decline as the Internet version grows.