Why do we play bingo? That is simple: to win! Bingo can be traced back thousands of years and is a keystone of our gambling culture. Centuries before we were even born, an Italian game, popular in the 1500’s, was generating a gigantic amount of success. This game is unrecognisable compared to modern Bingo games yet share the same themes of matching numbers for a successful win. In the US, Bingo evolved from a country fair game called “Beano”, which involved cigar boxes with numbered discs inside of them. The cards were marked with beans and “beano” was yelled if there was a match. The Germans also had their own version of Bingo, yet it was used as an educational tool, teaching children maths and spelling, which is sadly no fun at all if the impact of winning money is removed. How did these names develop into the standard moniker of Bingo?
A toy salesman from New York, Edwin S. Lowe renamed it Bingo after overhearing a “beano” player shout Bingo purely by accident. With this new name and a thirst for better Bingo gaming ideas, Edwin hired a maths professor to increase the number of bingo card variations. The card varieties numbered over six thousand in the end and it was said the inventor of these variations went insane.
Soon after the groundwork had been laid, Lowe was approached by priests who were looking to raise church funds with small stakes gambling games. We all know that Bingo games and church fund raisers go hand-in-hand and the rest, as they say is history. Church fund-raising today, in the US alone has rocketed to over one-hundred million dollars every week. It is these ‘heavenly’ connotations which make Bingo so appealing, especially to the older generation.
Welcome to the world of modern Bingo. Gone are the thoughts of blue-haired old women gambling away their pension money, and in are the countless millions of websites competing for Bingo supremacy. The standard online Bingo game works as such: A small application is downloaded [this is usually free] and an account is set up in order to keep your credit card details secure. Bingo is without-a-doubt one of the simplest games to play and the online version is no different. Once your game has been set up and your account funded with loads of lovely money, you can chat to other players, enter Bingo rooms and play to your heart’s content. Or at the very least, until your credit card dries up.
Thanks to the constant security updates and graphical interfaces, Online Bingo games have become the hottest commodity on the internet. Your details are kept safe and secure, plus your eyes are soothed with the very latest interface options, guaranteed to keep you playing all night long. The forecast is that Online Bingo will grow to one billion US dollars by the year 2010. Many Bingo players cite their favourite part of online Bingo being the enjoyment of taking part in a global community, whereby their interactions with others greatly increases the overall pleasure of playing their beloved game.
What does the future hold for Bingo? Already we have seen the development of mobile bingo games, which let you play bingo anywhere and additionally, on the move. The phone is now your bingo card, with live chats happening in your hand and money being won in an instant. The UK and the US are both home to most of the flourishing bingo sites, but like an uncontainable entity; it grows ever-hungry and determined to conquer all. Know you know why we play bingo. It is because we love it so!
Many people may be wondering what an online casino is. It is a virtual replica of a land based casino, a place where people can play a casino game (any casino game in fact, this being one of the advantages of an online casino). Another advantage of this kind of casino is the possibility to play a free online casino game.
There are two types of players: the ones that play for the money and the ones that play just for fun. The second category now has another option. If they don’t want to go to the casino and spend money while playing, they can choose a free online casino game. Now what’s that? you might ask. A free online casino game is a casino game that you can play for free, just like the name says. The advantage of a free online casino game is that you can enjoy yourself but you won’t loose any money while doing so. These free gaming sites can’t be called online casinos because a casino involves loosing or winning money. When you start playing on this type of gaming site you receive an online casino bonus in the form of credits, points or even currency. This casino bonus will be your virtual money which you can bet with. This is the beauty of a free online casino game: you play, you enjoy yourself, but your pockets are as full as they were when you started. Another advantage of a free online casino game is that it eliminates the stress factor. Any person who plays in a real casino will be under a lot of stress if he looses all of his money. Fortunately this will not happen with a free online casino game. If you loose all your credits, then you can just ask for more or wait another 24 hour for your credit to restore, depending on the rules of the site.
People have been trying to compare online casinos with land based casinos ever since competition appeared between the two. This is a very tricky thing to do because both have their advantages and disadvantages. It depends on how every person looks at the problem. Suitability is questionable when deciding between a normal casino or an online casino. If you want to play a casino game for fun you should consider going to a land based casino because it’s a lot more fun. You’ll be able to interact with other people, meet a lot of interesting persons, maybe even persons like you who come there for fun and not necessarily for the winnings. At a normal casino you can be caught in the moment and do all kind of crazy things; it’s not necessary to play the games. You can just go there walk around, enjoy your drink and go home. On the other hand the online casino experience is different. Most of the players prefer it not for fun necessarily, except when you play a free online casino game, but for the financial improvements. Usually people that play at an online casino play for the money. The experience is a lot colder, you won’t be able to interact with anyone, you won’t be able to meet anyone, and you basically play to earn money. So, depending on what you want, you can make a choice.
The thing with online casinos is that everything happens a lot faster and that is absolutely understandable because one of the defining proprieties of the Internet is speed. This speed can be a good thing, but it usually means otherwise because it increases the loosing of money. This is one of the reasons more and more people stop playing online. So, to stop people from giving up their favorite virtual games, a new concept has been introduced: the online casino bonus. This online casino bonus doesn’t have a real life equivalent, like a casino bonus or something else; it’s a strictly online bonus. This online casino bonus is a sum of money the casino gives you when you deposit money into an account. It’s virtual money which you can use to play. An online casino bonus can come in different forms, depending on the policy of the casino. It can be a fixed bonus, which means you get a certain amount of money no matter what amount you deposit. Another type of bonus is the variable bonus, this means you gat a certain percent of the sum you deposit. The percentage is different for each site – it can be 20% or 50%. Some casinos even give a 100% casino bonus. This is a way to get people back in the virtual game rooms, but an online casino bonus means that you have to play by some rules especially when you want to redraw your money. This is difficult because when you get an online casino bonus you have to meet some conditions which are not very easily accomplished. However, your efforts will be rewarded.
There is a category of people who play online just for the online casino bonus. They are called casino bonus hunters. These people look for the sites where the casino bonus is the largest so they can scam the casino. Being a bonus hunter is not a brilliant idea because, when you get caught, all your rights are revoked and you won’t be able to get a bonus on that site again.
So it doesn’t matter whether you play for the money or just for the fun of it because, whatever choice you make, you must think of your actions thoroughly before. And if you do pick an online casino you have to be attentive also because, if you don’t, you won’t get the results you expected.
