It can be easy to assume that bingo was devised in the UK, so perennially popular is it here. The fact is though that bingo is an immigrant, having been born in Italy all the way back in the 16th century.
Bingo is one of many parts of the fabric of British life that we have adopted and made our own and – thanks to the emergence of online bingo – it is now bigger than ever. Around 3.5 million people play regularly at bingo sites in the UK and the numbers are rising with every passing year.
Online bingo is a real phenomenon. It has taken the existing British love of bingo and supercharged it.
However the reasons behind its astonishing success are varied and interlinked.
A Classic Game Moves with the Times
Bingo first struck gold in Britain during the post-war era of the 1950s. Something about the game of 90 Ball Bingo in particular really caught the imaginations of people in that era of austerity and rationing.
A trip to the bingo hall at the weekends became an escape from the hardships of life and a bonding experience for women in particular. Right from the start, bingo was a game with a primarily female customer base.
Some of the shine had worn off by the 1980s, as other forms of entertainment captured the attentions of the British public. It looked as if bingo had had its day, but then the internet and online bingo happened.
Online bingo sites began to appear during the mid-1990s and by the new century were starting to really take off. However, whereas playing the game at high street bingo halls had largely appealed to middle-aged and elderly women, the online version caught on with younger ones.
It revitalised the game, bringing fresh new variants on the 90 Ball format, while the live chat forums and other features captured some of the social appeal of playing at a hall. Online bingo has now led to mobile bingo apps, as technology continues to drive progress.
The digital bingo market is worth around £6 billion to the UK economy, so a great deal is riding on its continued success.
Other Factors Driving That Success
There is no real question that technology has been the single biggest driving factor in the rise of online bingo. There are other ones that are tied into that though.
Probably the most important of those is the convenience aspect. We are all in love with the idea of convenience in modern Britain and online bingo delivers that in spades.
Whereas in the 1950s and 1960s, people would have to go out to a bingo hall to get their fix of this pastime, nowadays it is just a matter of logging into their favourite bingo site. The introduction of the 2007 smoking ban and the relaxation of internet gambling regulations further helped to shift custom for bingo online.
Digital bingo sites are also very easy for anyone to use. Internet access is widespread now and the sites are not hard to find.
Information about which ones are the best in terms of gaming and customer data security can also be located quickly and simply. That means the barriers to playing are virtually non-existent now.
It all adds up to the emergence of online bingo being the single most significant event in the development of bingo within the UK.
Not only has it made the game more accessible and convenient for people, it has also greatly increased the choice of games that they can opt to play. For all of their undoubted virtues, the games on offer at the old bingo halls rarely stretched much beyond standard 90 Ball Bingo.
That is certainly not the case at Wink and other top ranking online bingo sites. One of the first things that you will notice if you visit one of them is the sheer range of bingo options that they have.
As the number of actual providers of online bingo has risen in response to public demand, so has the volume of games. At a typical online bingo site of 2023, you will find both 90 Ball (which is the favoured version in this country) and 75 Ball (which is more popular in the US).
That is just the starting point though. Beyond those standard versions there are also themed bingo games, free-to-play games and ones that are innovative combinations of bingo and other games.
An example of the latter is slingo, which mixes the format of bingo with that of online slots.
This ever-expanding choice of games is helping bingo to stay on top in an era where competition for the time and money of young people is fierce.
